Date: 28 Mar 2002 17:23:17 -0800 From: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@blarg.net> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org Subject: docs/36447: chown(8) manual misdescribes handling of symlinks Message-ID: <bgvgbggoai.gbg@localhost.localdomain>
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>Number: 36447
>Category: docs
>Synopsis: chown(8) manual misdescribes handling of symlinks
>Confidential: no
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: low
>Responsible: freebsd-doc
>State: open
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class: doc-bug
>Submitter-Id: current-users
>Arrival-Date: Thu Mar 28 17:30:01 PST 2002
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator: Gary W. Swearingen
>Release: FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE i386
>Organization:
none
>Environment:
n/a
================
>Description:
The chown(8) manual says:
Chown sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
and
-h If the file is a symbolic link, change the user ID and/or the
group ID of the link itself rather than the file that the link
points to.
But without the -h option, symlinks given as arguments do not have
their IDs changed (as implied by the first quote) nor are the symlinks
followed (as implied by the second quote).
================
>How-To-Repeat:
su
cd /tmp
touch jjjr
ln -s jjjr jjjl
l jjj*
chown bin.bin jjjl
l jjj*
chown -h bin.bin jjjl
l jjj*
================
>Fix:
It should say:
Chown changes the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
Symbolic links named by arguments are silently left unchanged unless
"-h" is used. See the symlink(7) manual for the handling of
symlinks with a trailing slash.
and
-h If the file is a symbolic link, change the user ID and/or the
group ID of the link itself rather than silently leaving the link
unchanged.
Maybe the "symlink(7)" sentence should be omitted. No other manuals
currently discuss the trailing slash feature/bug including symlink(7).
I'll file a PR on the latter soon, so I say include the sentence.
On the other hand, maybe the "-h" description SHOULD mention that it
is ignored for symlinks with a trailing slash. But maybe not, if we
assume that people are supposed to learn in the symlink(7) manual that
a name with a trailing slash is never naming a symlink, but what it
points to. I'm saying "not", for now.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:
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