yyyyyy@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Defect report from : Paul Eggert , UCLA
> [...]
> @ page 871 line 33829 section sort editorial {20040730a}
> [...]
> The specification for "sort" says that it conforms to the Utility
> Syntax Guidelines, and Guideline 13 says
>
> For utilities that use operands to represent files to be opened
> for either reading or writing, the '-' operand should be used only
> to mean standard input (or standard output when it is clear from
> context that an output file is being specified).
> [...]
> It sounds like the standard is not clear enough here, perhaps because
> of the indirect reference to the Guidelines.
This issue does not just affect the 'sort' utility. At least the
following other utilities are concerned when reading files:
Utility | Heirloom GNU AIX Solaris HP-UX
----------------------------------------------------------------------
bc - | name name name name name
cksum - | name stdin name stdin stdin
expand - | name stdin name name name
file - | name n/a name name name
fold - | name stdin name name stdin
grep foo - | stdin stdin name name name
head - | stdin stdin name name name
nl - | name stdin name name stdin
od - | stdin stdin stdin stdin name
sed p - | name stdin name name name
wc - | name stdin name name name
(Versions used in these tests: Heirloom Toolchest 040727 POSIX.2-style
utilities; GNU coreutils 5.2.1, GNU bc 1.06, GNU grep 2.5.1, GNU sed
4.0.8; AIX 5.1; Solaris 8 /usr/xpg4/bin; HP-UX 11.11 with UNIX95 in
the environment.)
In general, systems other than GNU have a strong tendency to interpret
'-' as a file name instead of standard input, unless POSIX explicitly
states the opposite in the description for an individual utility.
> Append the following text after page 871 line 33829:
>
> If "output" is "-", sort shall write to standard output.
Perhaps the issue should be solved for all affected utilities at once,
in whatever direction the solution goes.
Gunnar
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