Re: Bug#671798: parallel: Passing args from command line is borked

[Ian Zimmerman]

Ian> Is /usr/bin/parallel essentially 2 programs in one?

Rogério> Essentially, yes.

Ian> Where is that documented?  As I wrote, "man parallel" only
Ian> documents the GNU behavior (which happens to be what I am used to
Ian> and want).

Rogério> Due to an unfortunate name collision, the package moreutils has
Rogério> a command that is also called parallel.

Yes, I knew that.  In fact I have maintained a private parallel package
for some time that did exactly the same thing as yours to deal with it,
that is a divert to parallel.moreutils.  But mine behaved as GNU by
default and that is why I was surprised.

Rogério> GNU parallel, to be compatible, also exposes that behavior,
Rogério> when invoked with the --tollef option. Otherwise, it is the
Rogério> pure GNU parallel behaviour.

Rogério> The default behavior in Debian was chosen to be --tollef as
Rogério> moreutils's presence in Debian predated GNU parallel for some
Rogério> time and to not interfere with users that happen to have both
Rogério> moreutils and GNU parallel installed.

I see.  I mistakenly thought this dual personality was a Debian
invention.  As it is it's clearly an upstream bug, they should document
it in the manpage or at least in the README.

Thanks for your attention.

-- 
Ian Zimmerman
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