Date: 29 Mar 2004 12:50:26 -0500 From: Albert Cahalan <albert@users.sf.net> To: harti@freebsd.org Cc: Stephen McKay <smckay@internode.on.net> Subject: Re: posix ps (was Re: Adding `pgrep' and `pkill' to /usr/bin) Message-ID: <1080582625.2233.2032.camel@cube> In-Reply-To: <20040329105719.E13220@beagle.fokus.fraunhofer.de> References: <p0602046abc879c5fe2f9@[128.113.24.47]> <20040325070120.GA67497@VARK.homeunix.com> <1a9c01c41359$b3da45e0$7890a8c0@dyndns.org> <p06020494bc8a5738af2f@[128.113.24.47]> <200403280808.i2S88aJ7016011@dungeon.home> <20040328184244.I10175@beagle.fokus.fraunhofer.de> <200403290042.i2T0g2sv003657@dungeon.home> <20040329091900.Y12618@beagle.fokus.fraunhofer.de> <200403290830.i2T8Ujsv006376@dungeon.home> <20040329105719.E13220@beagle.fokus.fraunhofer.de>
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On Mon, 2004-03-29 at 04:04, Harti Brandt wrote: > On Mon, 29 Mar 2004, Stephen McKay wrote: > > SM>On Monday, 29th March 2004, Harti Brandt wrote: > SM> > SM>>Think of 'ls -o'. -o is taken by posix to mean the same as '-l' but > SM>>without showing the group. FreeBSD ls instead takes it to show file flags. > SM>>This is a more obvious case where you want the selection. That was driving me nuts on a FreeBSD box just a few days ago. :-) > SM>I had promised to leave this debate, having said what I thought needed to > SM>be said. But this (and your subsequent message) implies that there are > SM>people who want to add $PERSONALITY to many basic FreeBSD utilities, not > SM>just in ps. > SM> > SM>This is a very bad road to take. Far from solving portability difficulties, > SM>it guarantees those difficulties into the indefinite future. Pyrimid OS was a different problem. It was fully expected that half of the users would choose BSD and the other half would choose SysV, and that they would set this in ~/.profile even. The users were even encourages to do this, right? Being able to flip a script into an odd mode isn't quite the same. > SM>If we need posix compatibility (and this should be a separate debate), then > SM>we take the pain and change the 'ls -o' option. For one release cycle the > SM>option still works in the old manner but outputs a warning. In the next > SM>major release, it changes to the posix flavour. Bang. Problem solved. Go for it. Make "ps" print a warning if "-" is ever used. Change "ls -o" too of course. > SM>Adding a hidden variable just makes things more complicated and guarantees > SM>the pain continues forever. People *will* set this variable inappropriately, > SM>and it *will* be a source of problems. > > I'm all with you on this. I said all this under the proposition that we > want to keep BSD syntax that conflicts with Posix. Sure, I'd rather simply > move to posix. (The only thing I'd want to retain is 'ps ax' :-) As long as you don't expect "ps -ax" as well, no problem. > SM>PS Should the CC list be truncated now? > > Ok. After this one :-) I'd like to be left on.
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