Re: readlink(1) of more than one file?

[Dmitry V. Levin]

On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 03:40:36PM +0000, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 12/15/2012 03:09 PM, Bernhard Voelker wrote:
[...]
> >And finally: -n is pretty much useless now with multiple arguments,
> >because the output is just concatenated together:
> >
> >   $ src/readlink --no /user /user
> >   homehome
> 
> >Wouldn't it be better to allow -n only for single-argument calls,
> >or use a blank " " as delimiter between the output for multiple
> >args, or warn?
> 
> Since -n is a largely redundant option anyway,
> I was just keeping it around for compat reasons.
> BSD operates like above, so why diverge?

If BSD readlink -n does something totally useless, it's not a reason
to follow and introduce that useless behaviour in GNU readlink.

I've tried to construct an example where readlink -n with multiple
arguments could be used harmlessly, and the only case I have so far
is when readlink's output does not matter (e.g. grep -q ^.) or discarded
completely.

So, please do not add multiple arguments support to readlink -n unless
you can also add a usage example for that feature.


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