>Number:         14420
>Category:       bin
>Synopsis:       affect-sym-links flag on chown/chgrp is ridiculous
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    bin-bug-people
>State:          open
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Nov 01 07:31:02 PST 2001
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     gabriel rosenkoetter
>Release:        /*  $NetBSD: chown.c,v 1.25 2000/12/17 22:47:14 mike Exp $  */
>Organization:
	
>Environment:
	
System: NetBSD grappa 1.5Y NetBSD 1.5Y (GRAPPA) #10: Mon Oct 29 19:47:11 EST 2001 gr@grappa:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GRAPPA i386
Architecture: i386
Machine: i386
>Description:
I ran into this first on Solaris, but since we picked up the -h
flag from Sys V to begin with, it's identical in NetBSD (and Linux,
for that matter).

I don't know about you, but -h says *nothing* to me about sym links.
I have to check the man page every time to remember what crazy flag
is used for this. -l strikes me as significantly more memorable, is
not used for anything else in BSD or Sys V chown/chrp nor, to the
best of my knowledge POSIX's (which seems to only require -R).

This is a pretty minor point, but it's irritated me doing admin work
more than once. I'm hoping I'll get lucky and other vendors will
pick this up from us. (Ha!)
>How-To-Repeat:
code inspection
>Fix:
--- usr.sbin/chown/chown.c.orig	Thu Nov  1 10:14:27 2001
+++ usr.sbin/chown/chown.c	Thu Nov  1 10:16:19 2001
@@ -118,6 +118,8 @@
 			 * so it was an undocumented noop.
 			 * In NetBSD 1.3, lchown(2) is introduced.
 			 */
+		case 'l':
+			/* Something slightly more memorable than -h. */
 			hflag = 1;
 			break;
 		case '?':
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: