From owner-freebsd-current Mon Dec 10 14:14: 5 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from pn109.warszawa.cvx.ppp.tpnet.pl (pn109.warszawa.cvx.ppp.tpnet.pl [213.76.109.109]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id ACEB137B405 for ; Mon, 10 Dec 2001 14:13:35 -0800 (PST) To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org From: Jackie 'business-first' Cook Subject: Motion for removal of xargs(1) from base system Message-Id: <20011210221335.ACEB137B405@hub.freebsd.org> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 14:13:35 -0800 (PST) Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG There are days when people get tired with the lagacy code in the system - when things of the past just have to go. Recently I got sick and tired with one of those things. The command is, as you could have guessed from the subject, xags(1) aka /usr/bin/xargs. It is buggy and cluttered piece of code. Faulty and hard to use command. It's idiosyncratic syntax makes people dizzy everytime they use/or just try to use it. Moreover short research I've conducted showed, that excessive use of xargs(1) can cause nausea, vomiting and migrene. The very presence of xargs(1) in the system, caused in some cases severe brain damage. Therefore I propose removal of xargs(1) from base system and moving it to ports tree. The new port in sysutils/xargs should be marked as BROKEN just after creation - that's obvious. Short procedure for removing xargs(1) from your life: Version #1 - for experienced sysadmins (local solution): rm -f /usr/bin/xargs (the -f is for those lucky ones who have ditched xargs(1) long ago, but just want to make sure it will vanish for good) Version #2 - for enterprise (ie. business) users, who are searching for their way in life (overwhelming majority) (local solution, still): find / -print0 | grep -v xargs | xargs -0 rm -f {} \; (the -v switch for grep adds some *verbosity* during operation) Version #3 - for commiters only (global solution, all FreeBSD users are urged to cvs up/cvsup right after the commit, but one of presented local solutions is still necessary to get rid of the venerous xargs(1) from your system): freefall% rm -rf $CVSROOT/src/usr.bin/xargs (to trash it altogether with version history, and make sure it will never come back) As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating system. Yours sincerly, Jackie 'business-first' Cook. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message