On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:20 PM, Paul Eggert <egg...@cs.ucla.edu> wrote: > Attached is a proposed patch to make the GZIP environment variable > obsolescent, for the same reason we're making GREP_OPTIONS obsolescent: it's > too much opportunity for trouble. For example, with a suitably crafted GZIP > environment variable I can cause 'gzip' to remove files.
Hi Paul, Thanks for getting the ball rolling. That patch makes it so use of the GZIP envvar makes gzip fail with exit status 2: $ echo |./gzip > k $ echo |GZIP=-1 ./gzip > k gzip: warning: GZIP environ var is deprecated; please use an alias or script [Exit 2] Making that clear feels like sufficient justification for adding a test. If making GZIP use provoke failure is deliberate, the NEWS should say that, for those who don't recall that a gzip warning implies nonzero exit status. Also, you may want to spell out "environment variable" in that diagnostic. Finally, for something prescriptive like that, I would drop the "please".
