From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 12786 invoked by uid 1002); 21 Sep 2003 01:06:36 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gentoo-dev-help@gentoo.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Received: (qmail 8615 invoked from network); 21 Sep 2003 01:06:36 -0000 Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 21:06:35 -0400 From: Aron Griffis To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Message-ID: <20030921010635.GC32446@time> Mail-Followup-To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i Subject: [gentoo-dev] [agriffis@gentoo.org: regarding head/tail syntax] X-Archives-Salt: c6835063-fe88-4b57-a468-bf780a1c89cc X-Archives-Hash: 64b30f514ac1cdc449b721000aea37c0 My apologies, I intended to cc this to gentoo-dev in the first place, not gentoo-core. I'll follow up with whatever response I receive. ----- Forwarded message from Aron Griffis ----- From: Aron Griffis Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 21:05:05 -0400 To: bug-coreutils@gnu.org Cc: gentoo-core@gentoo.org User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i Subject: regarding head/tail syntax Hello, I'm a developer for the Gentoo Linux distribution. Right now we've been doing some work on packages to make them work with head/tail from coreutils-5.0, which as you know no longer support the -number syntax. This led me to do some investigation and eventually write this email. First, I checked out some of the current UNIX flavors out there. I checked Tru64 UNIX 5.1B, Digital UNIX 4.0G, HP-UX B.11.11, Solaris 9, AIX 4.3, and NetBSD 1.6. In all of them, -number is allowed. I seriously doubt that any of the commercial UNIXes will ever disallow the -number syntax because it would break too many customer scripts. Second, I checked the Single UNIX Specification, Version 2, which still allows the head -number syntax. It recommends that applications should use the -n number option, since the obsolescent -number form may be withdrawn in a future issue. However it does not make a recommendation to implementors to remove the -number syntax. Additionally, I noted that the Single UNIX Specification does not make application recommendations for tail, although it refers to the older syntax as obsolescent. The pain I'm seeing in the Gentoo Linux distribution, along with the above research, leads me to question the rationale behind removing the -number syntax in the GNU coreutils. Personally, I don't see a motivation for their removal, since the older syntax is unambiguous and in heavy use by thousands of UNIX scripts already in existence. It doesn't seem fruitful for the Gentoo developers (along with developers of other distributions) to spend our time making this trivial change in hundreds of packages, and trying to push the changes upstream. Would the coreutils maintainers consider reinstating the older syntax to save us the unnecessary toil? If that is not considered an option, would you mind explaining the rationale behind making this change to the head/tail programs? I checked the coreutils FAQ but didn't find coverage of this topic. Thanks for the work you put into these programs. We appreciate it. Regards, Aron ----- End forwarded message ----- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list