Re: GNU Parallel Bug Reports Latest parallel in non-default prefix gives errors about retired options

[Ole Tange]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 1:10 PM, Robin Neatherway
<address@hidden> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 8:11 PM, Ole Tange <address@hidden> wrote:
>> --tollef was retired after being obsolete for a full year:
>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/parallel/2013-02/msg00018.html
>
> Yes, I appreciate this fact.
>
>>> Either using --plain or creating an empty profile and using that every
>>> time on the command line worked:
>>>
>>> $ echo > ~/.parallel/config
>>> $ ls | parallel --profile=config echo {}
>>> file1
>>> file2
>>> ...
>>
>> Don't do that. Remove the retired --tollef option instead. If the
>> --tollef in /etc/parallel/config is installed by a package, please
>> escalate this to the package maintainer.
>
> I don't have root access on this machine, so I cannot remove this
> file.

So the first thing you should do is contact root and explain him that
one should only use --tollef if one knows what one is doing. Doing it
by default is a very bad idea, and when packagers do that, they are
doing it wrong.

Feel free to quote the author of GNU Parallel for saying so.

> Fedora 20 ships with GNU Parallel 20130522, so while I disagree
> with them using that option by default, it is valid for that version
> of parallel.

While it is a valid option it should never be a default option in
/etc/parallel/config, so this is a bug in Fedora 20. May I suggest you
file a bug report for Fedora 20, so that can be fixed?

:
>> If you do not feel that is described clearly in the manual, please
>> help by rephrasing the manual.
>
> How would you like contributions? A patch to this mailing list against
> this repo: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git?

That would be fine.

:
>> You cannot put options that are retired in any config file.
>
> I see. Is it the case for other options that ~/.parallel/config
> overrides /etc/parallel/config, or are they combined? I can't tell
> from the manual, so once I understand I could had a section on
> configuration file precedence.

They are combined (similar to /etc/bashrc). This is why what you put
in /etc/parallel/config you should be very sure is needed by everyone.

(To make it work in your case, you simply remove the line containing
/etc/parallel/config from the source.)


/Ole