bug-findutils
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[bug #44221] Spurious warning about non-option arguments is spurious


From: Andrew McGill
Subject: [bug #44221] Spurious warning about non-option arguments is spurious
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2015 16:24:14 +0000
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0

Follow-up Comment #4, bug #44221 (project findutils):

Considering...

find -type f -ls -a -mindepth 4 -delete

That's an odd example ... I'm really struggling to understand what possible
interpretation -mindepth could have here other than the one it has .. maybe
someone might want to list all files but delete only some of them?  Without
the warning they may be unable to figure out why they did not list things
below depth 4?  Is the problem not that an output action, "-ls" appears before
-mindepth?  

Here is a restatement of the command with no opportunity for ambiguity, which
nevertheless generates a warning:

  find -type f -mindepth 4 -ls -a -delete

Even this wildly incorrect invocation can only be understood in one way (and
it is somehow allowed, when "find -type f -a" is not):

  find -type f -a -mindepth 2

While it is fun to educate users that they are misunderstanding the more
subtle points of finding files, a 37 word warning lecture when there is no
possible ambiguity or bug seems petulant rather than helpful.  

    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?44221>

_______________________________________________
  Message sent via/by Savannah
  http://savannah.gnu.org/




reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]