Eric Blake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > First, the 'extra argument' and 'missing argument' error messages are > missing a trailing newline.
Thanks. That's a bug, and I installed the obvious patch. > Second, it is confusing that -a is silently accepted, but that non-unary > operators that look like an operator, such as -q, get a different error > message than non-unary operators that are completely random, which are yet > different from the special cases of -o and -N. I suppose it might be nicer to generate more-consistent diagnostics, yes. > The POSIX violation comes in when you now try to negate these tests: > > $ /bin/test ! -a ChangeLog ; echo $? > 1 > $ /bin/test ! -o ChangeLog ; echo $? > /bin/test: extra argument `-o'2 I see your point on these. I think the current code was written before -o and -a were required by POSIX, and it is correct for the POSIX 1003.2-1992 standard. For 'test', the current standard has two options: base, and with the XSI extensions. As I read it, coreutils 'test' conforms to the base standard, but violates the combination of the standard plus the XSI extensions. It seems very odd that the XSI extension would alter the behavior of a base command, in such a way that it should produce the negation of the value that it would otherwise produce. I suspect that this was not intended, and it's likely a bug in the standard. At the very least, the point should be cleared up. Can you propose an Aardvark on this issue? A survey of existing implementations might help. My guess is that the result will come back that the existing standard is contradictory, and that implementations can do things either way. There's also the issue of what is the "right" thing to do. > $ /bin/test ! = ! ; echo $? > 0 POSIX requires this behavior, since the first clause applies: "If $2 is a binary primary, perform the binary test of $1 and $3." _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
