Re: bin/21970 (printf(1) breaks when format begins with "-")

[David Laight <david%l8s.co.uk@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR bin/21970; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: David Laight <david%l8s.co.uk@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/21970 (printf(1) breaks when format begins with "-")
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 18:19:06 +0000

 On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 07:30:05AM +0000, Alan Barrett wrote:
 >  
 >  I have now found text in SUSv3 that supports the argument that I
 >  rejected before.
 >  
 >  Under "Utility Description Defaults" at
 >  <http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap01.html
 >  #tag_01_11>, under the "OPTIONS" subheading, it says
 >  
 >  "       When this section is listed as "None.", it means that the
 >  "       implementation need not support any options. Standard utilities
 >  "       that do not accept options, but that do accept operands, shall
 >  "       recognize "--" as a first argument to be discarded.
 >  
 >  I am now convinced that NetBSD's printf(1) utility's handling of the
 >  "--" option is correct per SUSv3.  Treating a format argument that
 >  just happens to begin with "-" as if it was an unrecognised option is
 >  probably also allowed as an implementation extension, though I haven't
 >  found specific text to support that theory.
 
 My intepretation of the SUSv3 text is that the behaviour of NetBSD's
 printf(1) is required ...
 
 The real point is that "None." means that no options are currently
 supported, but some may be added in a future vresion.
 
        David
 
 -- 
 David Laight: david%l8s.co.uk@localhost