On 2009/05/10 22:48, Jacob L. Leifman wrote: > On 10 May 2009 at 19:14, Theo de Raadt wrote: > > > > Hi Damien, > > > > > > > I think we should fix dd(1). > > > > > > I like that. > > > > > > Not allowing uppercase violates the principle of least surprise for "M" > > > in particular, but accepting uppercase for all four multipliers is > > > probably > > > most convenient indeed (without documenting it, of course). > > > > And I disagree *VERY STRONGLY* since it leads people to write scripts > > which are not portable. In fact, people who used this tomorrow would > > be writing scripts which will not work on OpenBSD 4.5, so there is the > > compatibility answer right there. > > > > Extensions should not be added except when they are very pervasive or > > required. The upper case versions are not pervasive, and they are not > > required. > > > > The example where the M was used was obviously written by someone who > > did not realize that documentation should be accurate. Why punish the > > rest of us who value portabilitty for their error? > > > > > > More likely the M example was written by someone that is familiar with > one of the other variants of dd (such as possibly GNU). A quick check > of some other systems, including Linux flavors, shows me that while > they also require the b, c, and w suffixes in lower case, the M suffix > is expected to be upper case. So perhaps that one (and only that one) > should be allowed (or required?) in upper case. >
GNU dd also requires upper case letters for G, T, P, E, Z and Y (are they making this up as they go along? oh wait, yes they are...)
