On Saturday 17 September 2011, Rüdiger Meier wrote: > On Saturday 17 September 2011, Eric Blake wrote: > > I hate the way md5sum currently works. What we _should_ have done > > is make binary normal, > > [...] > > I've had ideas of how to change things for several years now, but > > [...] > > Yes, it's a real dilemma.
Just another point. Of course usually we all are strongly against changing any default behavior but in this case the default is that bad ... Imagine a file server which publishes md5sums for the users to check their downloads. Doesn't matter which mode the file server was using when calculating md5 - the user doesn't know it. No way to validate it reliable. Even worse if file server was using O_TEXT then a unix user is not even able to validate it due to the missing --textmode. I would say any serious admin is using --binary always now if he has to do with systems where it matters. So in this case I would simply break with the good manners and make --binary the default. cu, Rudi
