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Re: POSIX misunderstanding
From: |
Albert Cahalan |
Subject: |
Re: POSIX misunderstanding |
Date: |
18 Aug 2004 21:41:30 -0400 |
On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 23:34, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Albert Cahalan <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 13:49, Paul Eggert wrote:
> >> Albert Cahalan <address@hidden> writes:
> >>
> >> > Well, so does the --lines option.
> >>
> >> No, that uses an allowed extension. It's not prohibited, the way that
> >> multi-digit options are prohibited.
> >
> > Where?
>
> Guideline 3 says "Multi-digit options should not be allowed."
> That's an explicit prohibition.
I meant, where is --lines allowed, and how does this
not apply to -12345 as well? Look:
"Each option name should be a single alphanumeric character"
So the second "-" is a violation, along with the
ordering distinction between --lines and -lsn-ei.
> > the long options violate guideline 3.
>
> I don't see why. Guideline 3 is about short options.
I don't see any other kind of option allowed.
> > Why would the standard warn that some systems might not be standard?
>
> The standard contains several warnings of that sort. It's a pragmatic
> document. It hasn't been taken over by lawyers (yet :-).
>
> > the standard does indeed mention that the utility syntax guidelines
> > might be violated by some standard-conforming implementation
>
> No, it doesn't say that. It doesn't say that such an implementation
> conforms to the standard.
Quite frankly, if non-conflicting historical behaviors
are prohibited, then the standard isn't worth the paper
it's printed on. How likely do you think it is that Sun
and HP will drop the "head -42 ..." syntax? I'm quite
sure they'd manage to get certified in spite of this.
I do believe the "warning" is a loophole.
In any case, the important thing is that nobody gets
misled into choosing this pedantic config. You could
require that POSIXLY_CORRECT or POSIX_ME_HARDER be set
before disabling the historical options. You could
require that somebody passes "--pointlessly-pedantic"
to the configure script. Whatever, as long as nobody
trips on this. Stuff is needlessly breaking.
Perhaps a correction to the standard is in order,
if indeed you are correct about the lack of an
allowance for supporting historical behavior that
does not conflict with standard behavior.
- POSIX misunderstanding, Albert Cahalan, 2004/08/17
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Alfred M. Szmidt, 2004/08/17
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Paul Eggert, 2004/08/18
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Albert Cahalan, 2004/08/18
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Paul Eggert, 2004/08/18
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Albert Cahalan, 2004/08/18
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Paul Eggert, 2004/08/18
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding,
Albert Cahalan <=
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Paul Eggert, 2004/08/19
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Albert Cahalan, 2004/08/24
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Paul Eggert, 2004/08/24
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Albert Cahalan, 2004/08/26
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Paul Jarc, 2004/08/27
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Albert Cahalan, 2004/08/27
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Albert Cahalan, 2004/08/27
- Re: POSIX misunderstanding, Daniel Reed, 2004/08/28