We've already seen the issue with echo(1): Before we changed it to
ignore "--", the command
$ echo --
did not work as expected. Given POSIX mandated this and makes most
sense, in the interest of consistency the other tools need to be
streamlined for that as well.
Looking at yes(1) for instance, there's no reason to skip "--" in
the argument list.
We do not have long options like GNU does and there's no reason to
tinker with that here.
The majority of tools changed are ones taking lists of arguments
or only a single one. There's no reason why dirname should "fail"
on "--". In the end, this is a valid name.
The practice of hand-holding the user was established with the GNU
coreutils. "--help" and "--version" long-options are a disgrace to
what could've been done properly with manpages.
This has already been suggested by Evan Gates <evan.gates@gmail.com>
and he's totally right about it.
So, what's the problem?
I wrote a testing program asshole.c with
int
main(void)
{
execl("/path/to/sbase/echo", "echo", "test");
return 0;
}
and checked the results with glibc and musl. Note that the
sentinel NULL is missing from the end of the argument list.
glibc calculates an argc of 5, musl 4 (instead of 2) and thus
mess up things anyway.
The powerful arg.h also focuses on argv instead of argc as well,
but ignoring argc completely is also the wrong way to go.
Instead, a more idiomatic approach is to check *argv only and
decrement argc on the go.
While at it, I rewrote yes(1) in an argv-centric way as well.
All audited tools have been "fixed" and each following audited
tool will receive the same treatment.
FRIGN
sin
Hiltjo Posthuma
dwts
Connor Lane Smith
Christoph Lohmann