Re: findutils & textutils updates/bug fixes

[Kevin Dalley]

#1 sounds like a good idea.

#2  seems reasonable as well.

I'm not sure about #3 yet.  That changes things somewhat.  Let me
think about it.  I'm trying to fix a number of bugs in findutils, and
have an alpha release available in
ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/findutils-4.1.7.tar.gz
I'll consider adding features in a while.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Padraig Brady <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi,
> I've a few small patches here which I think are definitely required.
> 
> 1: findutils
> 
>  a: find (%D printf specifier added) which prints the device id
> associated
>     with a file. This (in conjunction with the inode number) allows you
>     to uniquely identify any file on the system, which is
> useful/required
>     for many applications.
> 
>  b: xargs doesn't ignore "empty" arguments when -0 used (I.E. '\0' is
> delimiter).
>     You can test this like:
> 
>     address@hidden:~$ echo -ne "1\n\n\n2" | xargs -n1 | od -t x1
>     0000000 31 0a 32 0a
>     address@hidden:~$ echo -ne "1\000\000\0002" | xargs -0 -n1 | od
> -t x1
>     0000000 31 0a 0a 0a 32 0a
> 
>     As you can see the first command works as expected, whereas the
> second doesn't.
>     In summary multiple consequtive '\0's should be squeezed to 1 '\0'
> 
>  c: Related to b: xargs should have an option to group arguments passed
> to commands
>     by 2 or more delimeters, i.e: you should be able to do:
> 
>     address@hidden:~$ echo -ne "1\n2\n3\n\na\nb\nc\n" | xargs -nn
>     1 2 3
>     a b c
>     address@hidden:~$
> 

-- 
Kevin Dalley
SETI Institute
address@hidden