Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2010 22:40:08 GMT From: Alexander Best <arundel@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: bin/143271: [patch] whatis(1) should print error message to stderr Message-ID: <201008012240.o71Me8EP073263@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR bin/143271; it has been noted by GNATS. From: Alexander Best <arundel@freebsd.org> To: Jan Schaumann <jschauma@netmeister.org> Cc: bug-followup@freebsd.org Subject: Re: bin/143271: [patch] whatis(1) should print error message to stderr Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2010 22:39:53 +0000 On Sun Aug 1 10, Jan Schaumann wrote: > Alexander Best <arundel@freebsd.org> wrote: > > > however i don't see why whatis'es return values should be altered. > > it's common practice to return 0 on success. so returning 0 if whatis > > recognizes the keyword is just fine. oh i'm sorry. i think this was a misunderstanding then. indeed this is a bug. although the whatis(1) manual only talks about the return status of apropos i also checked apropos and it also returns 0 if nothing was found. so this is just plain wrong and apropos/whatis don't do what they're supposed to according to the manual. cheers. alex > > The problem is that whatis(1) returns 0 even if it does NOT find > anything, which should be an error condition. > > $ whatis oink > oink: nothing appropriate > $ echo $? > 0 > $ > > -Jan -- a13x
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