Ed Avis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I suggest that when 'od -t a' encounters the first high-bit-set
> character in the input it should print a warning
That sounds a bit strong. All other things being equal I'd rather not
have behavior depend on POSIXLY_CORRECT.
> If you don't want to do that, please update the help text and info
> documentation to make it clear that the 'a' format maps high-bit-set
> characters onto the same output as ASCII
Good point, and thanks for the suggestion. I installed this patch:
2006-02-01 Paul Eggert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* doc/coreutils.texi (od invocation): Warn that -t a ignores the high
order bit. Documentation problem reported by Ed Avis.
* src/od.c (usage): Likewise.
--- doc/coreutils.texi 31 Jan 2006 01:38:05 -0000 1.308
+++ doc/coreutils.texi 2 Feb 2006 07:39:48 -0000
@@ -1607,7 +1607,7 @@ to the output line generated by the type
@table @samp
@item a
-named character
+named character, ignoring high-order bit
@item c
@acronym{ASCII} character or backslash escape,
@item d
@@ -1623,7 +1623,9 @@ hexadecimal
@end table
The type @code{a} outputs things like @samp{sp} for space, @samp{nl} for
-newline, and @samp{nul} for a null (zero) byte. Type @code{c} outputs
+newline, and @samp{nul} for a null (zero) byte. Only the least significant
+seven bits of each byte is used; the high-order bit is ignored.
+Type @code{c} outputs
@samp{ }, @samp{\n}, and @code{\0}, respectively.
@cindex type size
--- src/od.c 26 Nov 2005 07:29:48 -0000 1.168
+++ src/od.c 2 Feb 2006 07:39:48 -0000
@@ -337,7 +337,7 @@ All arguments to long options are mandat
fputs (_("\
\n\
Traditional format specifications may be intermixed; they accumulate:\n\
- -a same as -t a, select named characters\n\
+ -a same as -t a, select named characters, ignoring high-order bit\n\
-b same as -t o1, select octal bytes\n\
-c same as -t c, select ASCII characters or backslash escapes\n\
-d same as -t u2, select unsigned decimal 2-byte units\n\
@@ -361,7 +361,7 @@ suffixes may be . for octal and b for mu
\n\
TYPE is made up of one or more of these specifications:\n\
\n\
- a named character\n\
+ a named character, ignoring high-order bit\n\
c ASCII character or backslash escape\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
_______________________________________________
Bug-coreutils mailing list
Bug-coreutils@gnu.org
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
