Re: RFE: head,tail: -z, --zero-terminated

[Assaf Gordon]

Hello Pádraig and all,

On 01/08/2016 11:56 AM, Pádraig Brady wrote:
[...]
> Possible additions to this class:
>
>    nl (N/A as primarily text rather than record oriented)
>    numfmt (ditto)
>    expand (ditto)
>    unexpand (ditto)

Attached similarly structured patch adding -z to numfmt (it does not include a 
NEWS entry, yet).

an open question:
With -z, do embedded newlines count as whitespace/field delimiters ?
(not sure if this applies to other programs).

For example:

   $ printf "A B\tC\nD 1000\x00"

Should the newline count as whitespace/field delimiter (since numfmt defaults 
to whitespace delimiters) ?
If so, the "1000" should be the fifth field.
If not, the "1000" should be in the fourth field (and "C\nD" cound as one 
field).

Currently, because the numfmt code uses "isblank()", newlines DO NOT count as 
whitespace:

    $ printf "A B\tC\nD 1000\x00" | ./src/numfmt -z --to=si --field=4 | od -a
    0000000   A  sp   B  sp   C  nl   D  sp   1   .   0   K nul
    0000015

====

Also,
Two minor questions:

1. If null-terminated test fail due to incorrect output, the log will contain:
    numfmt.pl: test z4: stdout mismatch, comparing z4.2 (expected) and z4.O 
(actual)
    Binary files z4.2 and z4.O differ

This will make it hard for users to send us bug reports.
Perhaps it's worth thinking about how to display a diff even for 
null-terminated lines (not sure how best to approach this).


2. In the patch for "wc", the long-form of the parameter (for getopt_long) is "zero" 
instead of "zero-terminated" - is that intentional ?

===

comments welcomed.

 - assaf

numfmt-zero.patch
Description: Text document