Re: Why hasn't this ARFLAGS patch not been merged yet?

[Nick Bowler]

On 11/3/15, Michael Felt <address@hidden> wrote:
> I suppose in a GNU only world, this would be okay. However, my man page for
> ar still says:
>
>        -u
>             Copies only files that have been changed since they were last
> copied (see the -r flag discussed previously).
>
> while the option -D is not found.
[...]
> so, I think adding -D as a default will break "all" for me.

The patch actually just removes 'u' from the default; it does not add
any nonstandard options.  The issue is that some GNU systems are
shipping versions of 'ar' which enable the (GNU-specific) 'D' option
by default, which causes the 'u' option to print a warning and have no
other effect.