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Date:      Fri, 24 Jan 2003 20:00:15 -0800 (PST)
From:      Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@freebsd.org>
To:        freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: docs/46415: Proposed change in man-page wording for "chown"
Message-ID:  <200301250400.h0P40Fgm017754@freefall.freebsd.org>

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The following reply was made to PR docs/46415; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@freebsd.org>
To: bug-followup@freebsd.org
Cc: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com>,
	System Administrator <root@asarian-host.net>
Subject: Re: docs/46415: Proposed change in man-page wording for "chown"
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 05:51:36 +0200

 On 2003-01-24 19:19, "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com> wrote:
 > Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@freebsd.org> writes:
 > >      Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted
 > >      in the files instead of just the files themselves.
 >
 > I guess it'll do.  It sure is geeky.  "Hierarchies rooted in files"?
 > I'm not sure that it's even explained in intro Unix books that "files"
 > can mean "directories" or what "rooted" means.  But I guess newbies can
 > learn to decypher geek-speak the same way we did -- the hard way.
 
 I just checked the other two BSDs.  They haven't changed anything
 here.  My guess is that they share the opinion that "everything is a
 file under Unix".  A more verbose description can't hurt though.
 
 
 > It probably needs to mention the culprit, ".." as it's not obvious why
 > a dot needs care.  "*dog.cat" needs no care, but "dog/../../cat" does.
 > (The latter's need for care can probably go without saying with or
 > without a "*".)  How about:
 >
 > Beware of unintentionally operating on the ".." hard link when using
 > wildcards which start with a dot (e.g., ".*") .
 
 This is nice, short and precise.  Paraphrasing your initial change
 here a bit, does this look better?
 
     - -R  Change the user ID and/or the group ID of the directory entries
     -     specified by the "file" arguments and, recursively, the contents
     -     of any directory subtrees named by those directory entries.
     + -R  Change the user ID and/or the group ID of the directory
     +	  entries specified by the "file" arguments and, recursively,
     +	  the contents of any directory subtrees in the argument list.
     +	  When the -R option is used, beware of unintentionally
     +	  operating on the ".." hard link when using wildcards which
     +	  start with a dot (e.g., ".*").
 
 > Also: In your sentence, I think you ought to paren the dot character and
 > move it after "character", or just remove the word "dot".
 
 True.  I'll dust my groff_mdoc stuff and use parens.
 
 > P.S.  Here's a little log of a test I just ran.  I guess I don't
 > know what we're trying to document, now. It didn't pick up the ".."
 > link.  ????
 >
 > $ chown -R root:wheel .*
 > chown: .*: No such file or directory
 
 Hmmm, what is your shell?  I've tried both /bin/sh and bash with the
 following and .. shows up in the list printed:
 
   $ echo chown -R root:wheel .*
   chown -R root:wheel . .. .X0-lock .X11-unix
   $
 
 - Giorgos

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