Re: BUG: tail 5.93 -c argument is optional?

[Eric Blake]

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According to sqweek on 1/6/2006 6:25 AM:
> $ cat bar |tail -c3
> oo
>     # Working fine so far...
> $ cat bar |tail -c 3
> tail: cannot open `3' for reading: No such file or directory

See the NEWS file; this is not a bug.  "tail -c 3" is inherently
non-portable, as POSIX 1003.2-1992 requires it to be interpreted like
"tail -c 10 ./3", and POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires it to be interpreted like
"tail -c3".  Your choice of _POSIX2_VERSION environment variable can
choose which interpretation you desire.  The problem stems from the fact
that in the older POSIX, -c took an optional argument, and optional
arguments cannot be detected unless they are part of the same command-line
argument as the -c.

- --
Life is short - so eat dessert first!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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