Re: HEADS UP: tar -l is now (intentionally) broken.

From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd_at_online.fr>
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 16:37:55 -0400
David O'Brien said on Aug  3, 2004 at 11:22:47:
> On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 10:55:45PM -0700, Tim Kientzle wrote:
> > I will consider
> > suggestions for a corresponding environment variable
> > for GNU behavior (GNULY_CORRECT?).
> 
> 'GNU_ME_HARDER'.

For those who missed the reference, Stallman's original term was 
POSIX_ME_HARDER
   http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=DJM.91Aug29122459%40vortex.eng.umd.edu
and he changed it, he says, under pressure from a prudish POSIX
committee member (but some programs still honour it...)

I'd like to see the GNU behaviour stay the default, just for POLA
reasons (especially since data loss could be involved: it's bad enough
losing data by typing x when you meant c, which is rather common,
let's not put in additional pitfalls).  Also, commercial unix is a
dwindling species, so practically all tar users are used to the GNU
version anyway.  POSIX purists probably define POSIXLY_CORRECT in
their .*shrc files already.  

And it's worth noting that minor incompatibilities like this just
serve to annoy new users (which usually means users from linux-land).
For example, it's annoying that BSD man can't read a manpage by
specifying the full path to a filename (eg, man ./foo.1).

But I realise many BSD oldtimers' notion of "the right thing" is
different from mine...

Rahul
Received on Tue Aug 03 2004 - 18:38:36 UTC

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