Re: [PATCH] md5sum: Implemented --pedantic option to be more strict in verification mode

[Jim Meyering]

Erik Auerswald wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Jul 07, 2011 at 09:22:25AM +0200, Jim Meyering wrote:
>> schoenfeld / in-medias-res wrote:
>> >>From 156d7e829da3ab9d895a275c2cd02e52388bcd0d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
>> > From: Patrick Schoenfeld <address@hidden>
>> > Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:54:08 +0100
>> > Subject: [PATCH] md5sum: Implemented --pedantic option to be more strict 
>> > in verification mode
>> >
>> > * md5sum: Implemented a --pedantic option in --check mode, which lets 
>> > md5sum
>> >   bail out with a non-zero exit code, if one or more improperly formatted 
>> > line
>> >   is found. Feature request by Dan Jacobson.
>> >   (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=353911)
>> ...
>>   - when checking two or more files, don't stop processing (exit) upon
>>     an invalid line in the first.  i.e., process all files before exiting.
>
> Why? If md5sum exits with non-zero error code if a malformed line
> is found, IMHO it should exit at the first such line. If you want
> diagnostics, you can already use --check an get a warning for each
> malformed line.

Consistency with many standardized programs.
All coreutils programs that accept multiple file arguments work that way.
cat, rm, mv, cp, od, chmod, chown, ln, ls, etc. do not terminate early
just because they fail to process one of the first few of many input files.
That way you learn of failures potentially affecting multiple files
before exit.  Otherwise you would have to rerun the same command again
and again (or in this case know to use --warn) to learn about problems
with multiple input files.