Re: split: support unlimited number of split files

[Jérémy Compostella]

2012/3/10 Pádraig Brady <address@hidden>:
> On 03/10/2012 11:13 AM, Jérémy Compostella wrote:
>
>> BTW, reviewing your changes I discovered that when a user specifies a
>> suffix length zero the old behavior was to use the default length of 2
>> and the new is, of course, the suffix auto length way.
>
> Well spotted. I noticed that too, but thought 0 = auto (default) was ok.
>
>> However, IMHO,
>> it's dangerous to not raise an error. If a user for example make a
>> script which use split with a shell variable for the suffix_length
>> option it could have the feeling that his script works fine although it
>> provides a suffix length zero.
>
> Though if there was an existing script as follows we'd break it.
>
> sl=0 #default
> [ "$some_condition" ] && sl=5
> split -a $sl ...
>
>> I attached an independent patch since there is no semantic relationship
>> with the current one. Feel free to merge, review or refuse it.
>
> I'm inclined to think this is fine as is.
OK. I do agree with your argumentation. However, an error for an
inconsistent argument value does not always need a documentation, but
IMHO, an implicit feature like this should be documented, no ?

Cheers,

Jérémy