Re: 'printf' is not SuSv3 compliant (and maybe not POSIX...?)

[Jim Meyering]

address@hidden (Bob Proulx) wrote:

> DervishD <address@hidden> [2002-08-19 20:37:55 +0200]:
>>     The 'printf' command (no matter the POSIXLY_CORRECT var), chokes
>> on the following:
>>
>>     > printf -- "Hi there\n"
>>     --printf: warning: excess arguments have been ignored
>>
>>     The correct behaviour, according to Single UNIX Specification
>> version 3 (don't know the POSIX behaviour), is that 'printf' shall
>> recognize '--' as a first argument to be discarded. That is, if I
>> want to print '--help', I shouldn't need to set POSIXLY_CORRECT, but
>> just do 'printf -- --help'.
>
> Thanks for the report.  I logged this as a bug against GNU coreutils
> and it is now in the database.

Thank you for the report!  And thanks for filing it, Bob!
I've just fixed the bug.
Here's the patch (against coreutils-4.5.1):

Index: printf.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /fetish/cu/src/printf.c,v
retrieving revision 1.69
diff -u -p -u -p -r1.69 printf.c
--- printf.c    31 Aug 2002 08:52:11 -0000      1.69
+++ printf.c    13 Sep 2002 09:37:06 -0000
@@ -545,6 +545,14 @@ main (int argc, char **argv)
     parse_long_options (argc, argv, PROGRAM_NAME, GNU_PACKAGE, VERSION,
                        AUTHORS, usage);
 
+  /* The above handles --help and --version.
+     Since there is no other invocation of getopt, handle `--' here.  */
+  if (1 < argc && STREQ (argv[1], "--"))
+    {
+      --argc;
+      ++argv;
+    }
+
   if (argc == 1)
     {
       fprintf (stderr, _("Usage: %s format [argument...]\n"), program_name);