Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 19:49:27 -0800 From: David Schultz <dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU> To: Mark <admin@asarian-host.net> Cc: Ceri Davies <setantae@submonkey.net>, Andrew Cutler <andrew@1stelement.com>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: chown broken?? Message-ID: <20021221034927.GA804@HAL9000.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <200212201448.GBKEMQM99487@asarian-host.net> References: <1040390551.921.36.camel@localhost> <200212201412.GBKECSM91804@asarian-host.net> <20021220141504.GB6893@submonkey.net> <200212201448.GBKEMQM99487@asarian-host.net>
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Thus spake Mark <admin@asarian-host.net>: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ceri Davies" <setantae@submonkey.net> > To: "Mark" <admin@asarian-host.net> > Cc: "Andrew Cutler" <andrew@1stelement.com>; <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> > Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 3:15 PM > Subject: Re: chown broken?? > > > > On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 03:12:17PM +0100, Mark wrote: > > > > > I must say, though, that while I understand this behaviour, one can > > > argue on what exactly "recursive" is to mean here. Intuitively, > > > the definition of "the current sub-directory and all sub-directories > > > below the current directory (and that for each subdirectory)" seems > > > the correct one. Which would exclude "..", as this is not a > sub-directory > > > of the current directory, but the parent. > > > > Not really. It recurses through the directories named on the command > > line, of which '..' happens to be one. > > > Yes, "the directories named on the command line" within the CURRENT > directory. Technically, "." and ".." are entries within the current > directory (try: "od -c ."), and they have inode numbers too. But that does > not deter me from deeming it a bit counter-intuitive to consider ".." a > directory of the current directory. :) Especially in the context of > recursion. So you want 'chown foo ..' to fail, as a special case? As I mentioned before, rm gets away with this because you don't want to remove the parent of the directory you're currently in. (Actually, some rm implementations *will* let you shoot yourself in the foot.) But it's perfectly reasonable to chown '..', even recursively, so chown can't make any assumptions. I object to going around and documenting this caveat in the manpages for every single utility that supports recursion through a directory tree. It doesn't really belong there, it belongs in a ``How to use the shell'' tutorial. The way Unix traditionally does parameter expansion makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot in at least a dozen ways, and this is just one of them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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