Re: feature request: -0 option for tr

[James Youngman]

On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Craig Sanders<address@hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 10:13:15AM +0100, James Youngman wrote:
>> The essential point though has already been made by Bob and Andreas;
>> this causes failures for filenames which themselves contain newlines
>> (all Unix-like filesystems I am familiar with allow this).
>
> i've already heard this stupid argument three times and it's as cretinous
> the fourth time as it was the first three.  it's even more annoying to hear
> it again almost two days after i gave up the lost cause of getting anybody
> to actually give a damn about implementing a useful feature.
>
> but the really annoying thing about the argument is that it has nothing
> to do with my proposed feature.  FILENAMES WITH NEWLINES ARE EXPLICITLY
> OUT OF THE FUCKING SCOPE OF THE REQUEST

It's irrelevant whether you consider that case in scope or not,
though.  In the absence of external drivers (such as POSIX
compatibility) the maintainers of the package (I don't maintain
coreutils but I do maintain xargs) aren't going to implement a feature
with a known design flaw - the fact that you personally don't care
about the flaw is beside the point.

> SO HARPING ON ABOUT THEM NOT
> BEING CATERED TO IS CRIMINALLY FUCKING STUPID.
>
> is that in simple enough terms for you to understand?

Of course I understand.   The point is that you can't get rid of the
edge cases (in this case, newlines in filenames) simply by wishing
them away or saying "I don't care".

> if you're too lazy or indifferent to implement a feature then have the
> guts to say so - as volunteers you have every right to say "I don't want
> to do that" - but don't make up lame bullshit excuses.

But they're not excuses in that sense.  You're facing a refusal to
implement a bad idea.   The refusal doesn't arise out of laziness.

>> Where no file names contain newlines, the measure is not necessary
>> anyway.
>
> actually, it is because the proposal wasn't about translating newlines
> in filenames.  it was about changing the termination character from newline
> to null to make the input suitable for use with 'xargs -0'
>
> i would have thought it was obvious that newlines aren't the concern
> here, and never were. the point of using null terminated strings for
> input to xargs is to avoid problems with spaces and other punctuation
> characters.

In that case use "xargs -d" not "xargs -0".

> now fuck off and quit bothering me. i've wasted enough of my time on you
> losers.

In these cases you might find it helpful to defer replying until the
initial surge of anger on finding that other people don't agree with
you has subsided.

James.