Re: proposed bsdlabel patch

Luigi Rizzo wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 10:17:06AM +0200, Hartmut Brandt wrote:
> 
>>Marcel Moolenaar wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
>>>The file takes precedence, because any filename that does not contain
>>>any directory elements is assumed to live in the current directory. The
>>>shorthand for device special files is secundairy to that, because it's
>>>a convenience only. If the device special file is meant, it has to be
>>>specified as /dev/ad0 in the example given.
> 
> 
> it may be secondary, but it has been the historical behaviour for
> ages and I don't want to hear people rightly screaming for a change
> that broke a huge number of existing scripts.
> 
> 
>>That makes it very easy to trash a file in the current directory.
> 
> 
> that is a minor concern. "rm" has the same problem :)

Not really. rm has no magic that interpretes da0 as /dev/da0. If you
happen to have a file da0 in your current directory (let's say the saved
disklabel or so) and specify just da0 to disklabel expecting that it
will work on /dev/da0 it will unexpecedly clobber your file. Such
automatisms make things not easier, but more complex - you have to
remember them. You need to get the habit to do ls -l before you do
disklabel da0. I'd say keep the '-f' option, that'll make things clearer.

harti