[BusyBox 0004414]: xargs in version 1.11.1 has incorrect default for -e option

bugs at busybox.net bugs at busybox.net
Fri Aug 1 07:06:48 UTC 2008


The following issue has been SUBMITTED. 
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http://busybox.net/bugs/view.php?id=4414 
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Reported By:                Araneidae
Assigned To:                BusyBox
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Project:                    BusyBox
Issue ID:                   4414
Category:                   Other
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   minor
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     assigned
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Date Submitted:             08-01-2008 00:06 PDT
Last Modified:              08-01-2008 00:06 PDT
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Summary:                    xargs in version 1.11.1 has incorrect default for -e
option
Description: 
The (undocumented) -e option for xargs, used to define an argument to be
treated as end of input (sets eof_str), has two problems.

1. The default value is "_".  This means that by default an argument of _
will be treated as end of input.  This is not a nice surprise!

2. The argument is current marked as taking an option value -- which means
that I can't specify an empty string to be end of input, which would
actually be useful.

The patch I attach below fixes both these issues, but does have the
disadvantage of introducing an incompatible change in behaviour.  However,
the current behaviour is both broken and undocumented, so maybe this is
good.
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Issue History 
Date Modified   Username       Field                    Change               
====================================================================== 
08-01-08 00:06  Araneidae      New Issue                                    
08-01-08 00:06  Araneidae      Status                   new => assigned     
08-01-08 00:06  Araneidae      Assigned To               => BusyBox         
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