Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:30:04 GMT From: walter@pelissero.de (Walter C. Pelissero) To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: bin/149424: fstab and labels with whitespace Message-ID: <201008171430.o7HEU45q007697@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR conf/149424; it has been noted by GNATS.
From: walter@pelissero.de (Walter C. Pelissero)
To: Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de>
Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG, bug-followup@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: bin/149424: fstab and labels with whitespace
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:21:58 +0200
Oliver Fromme writes:
> Walter C. Pelissero wrote:
> > Oliver Fromme writes:
> > > The problem with this patch is that it breaks backwards-
> > > compatibility. Some people might already use backslashes
> >
> > As far as I remember, the patch I proposed allowed a double backslash
> > ('\\') to mean a single backslash ('\').
>
> Sure, but still everyone who uses backslashes will have to
> change his /etc/fstab *in advance*, or otherwise his box
> will not boot after the update.
It seems to be unlikely there are systems out there relying on a
boot-time mounted filesystem whose device path (or label) contains a
backslash. Certainly not a great deal of those.
Maybe you care to give us some concrete example. Who knows, there
could be a BSD distribution, that I failed to notice, with a really
bizarre naming convention for the device drivers.
> Changing the syntax of /etc/fstab is a very delicate issue.
Acute observation, indeed.
> Of course, it would be possible to change the syntax in a
> backwards-compatible way. But this would require more code
> and would potentially introduce more complications.
Maybe you should leave alone the generic considerations of
circumstance and write some code yourself.
In the past 8 years there have been three different proposals and
concrete implementations. You could add your own. So we would at
least know what you mean with "backwards-compatible way".
> > > in /etc/fstab, for whatever reason. This change would
> > > make them rather unhappy, I'm afraid.
> >
> > Being unhappy for having to change a couple of entries in fstab is not
> > nearly as bad as not being able to insert an entry altogether.
>
> As I wrote, there are several workarounds.
Then, why do you write it again?
--
walter pelissero
http://www.pelissero.de
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