[ On Friday, June 21, 2002 at 21:11:25 (+0100), David Laight wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: bin/17340: the meaning of the "-c" option to /usr/bin/su is overloaded
>
> > > 	The command 'su -c "random command"' no longer functions,
> > > 	though 'su root -c "random command"' does act as before.
> 
> If it's not a silly question, when, and of what version did this
> 'work'?

That's a good question -- I don't know that it ever did in *BSD, at
least not after the introduction of getopt() to su.c.

> > > 	A likely mistake was the use of the "-c" argument to reflect
> > > 	changes in login class along with its traditional usage as the
> > > 	prefix specifier to the command to be executed..
> > 
> > (I think the cause was probably a more careful options parser in getopt(3))
> 
> Don't think so - I've just reinstated libc.so.12.83, makes no difference.

That's good to hear!

> > I think the mistake is to assume the "su -c command" form will work.
> 
> I can't see a version of su where it would.  getopts() returning
> '?' has always made netbsd's su exit.
> 
> OTOH a SYSV/Solaris su might behave differently.

When the '-' option was introduced (before System III), it was
implemented with a silly non-getopt() hack.  It was still that way in
SysVr3.2.  I don't know what happened when '-' was deprecated and '-l'
was introduced to replace it in order to bring 'su' closer to POSIX
compatability.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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