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stat: possible feature retraction: speak now or hold your peace
From: |
Jim Meyering |
Subject: |
stat: possible feature retraction: speak now or hold your peace |
Date: |
Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:18:25 +0100 |
[FYI, I posted a similar message just before making the incompatible
change, but no one objected. ]
Due to complaints that the new (5.93) stat has broken some Debian scripts,
I'm thinking of making the following changes in coreutils-5.94 and
on the trunk:
stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
containing this change was 5.92.
stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
automatically newline terminated.
stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
via --format=FMT or --printf=FMT.
I have mixed feelings about doing this. On one hand, the change has
been in test releases for a pretty long time. On the other, it's been
in stable releases for only a month.
If you know of scripts that rely on the current (5.3.0-5.93) behavior
and feel strongly that we should retain the current behavior, speak up now.
History:
pre-5.3.0 (no newline in format, newline(s) in output)
$ stat --format=%i / /
2
2
5.3.0-5.93 (no newline in format, no newline in output)
$ stat --format=%i / /; echo
22
$
You *can* use the newer version of stat to get the
same behavior as before, e.g., with a Bourne shell:
$ nl='
'
$ stat --format=%i"$nl" / /
2
2
- stat: possible feature retraction: speak now or hold your peace,
Jim Meyering <=