RE: [Bug-wget] contributing to wget

[Tony Lewis]

address@hidden wrote:

> The recovery of wget crossed my mind too but I presumed in such an
> instance the user would install their own copy of wget or speak to the
> administrator. Perhaps asking the user how to proceed if the system
> wgetrc parse failed would suitable. e.g
>
> "Parsing system wgetrc file failed; please check /etc/wgetrc"
> "Attempt to parse user wgetrc file? (y/n)"
>
> Any thoughts?

Detecting and reporting problems with the system wgetrc file is a really
good addition.

However, there is no reason to believe that the user has any way to convince
the system administrator to solve the problem. Even if the administrator
agrees, an internal change control process may determine when the
administrator can make the change; on some systems this can take months.
While waiting for that to happen, the user is completely blocked.

How does installing one's own copy of wget help? (Unless you mean that the
user hacks the source code to remove processing of the system wgetrc file.)

wget is a command-line tool that is often used in a batch environment. You
cannot force user interaction on every invocation to get around a broken
system wgetrc file.

Tony