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ID | Category | Severity | Type | Date Submitted | Last Update | ||
0001221 | [1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2] Shell and Utilities | Objection | Omission | 2018-12-22 21:02 | 2019-02-23 14:05 | ||
Reporter | Don Cragun | View Status | public | ||||
Assigned To | |||||||
Priority | normal | Resolution | Withdrawn | ||||
Status | Closed | ||||||
Name | Donald Cragun | ||||||
Organization | |||||||
User Reference | |||||||
Section | echo | ||||||
Page Number | 2674 | ||||||
Line Number | 87116-87117 | ||||||
Interp Status | --- | ||||||
Final Accepted Text | |||||||
Summary | 0001221: The DESCRIPTION omits requiring echo to separate arguments with <space>s when writing them. | ||||||
Description |
The current DESCRIPTION section for the echo utility is:The echo utility writes its arguments to standard output, followed by a <newline>. If there are That requires that the command: <tt>echo a b c</tt> produce the output: <tt>abc</tt> All implementations of echo that I have ever used put a single <space> character between arguments when they are written to standard output such that the output produced is: <tt>a b c</tt> The only time when <space>s isn't historically added is after <tt>"\c"</tt> has been seen in an argument on XSI-conforming systems (or after a non-conforming option indicates that the XSI <backslash> escapes are to be processed). |
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Desired Action |
Change the first sentence of the DESCRIPTION section to be:The echo utility writes its arguments, separated by a <space> character, followed by a <newline> character to standard output. |
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Tags | No tags attached. | ||||||
Attached Files | |||||||
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Notes | |
(0004190) schwarze (reporter) 2018-12-22 21:21 |
To support this proposal, i'd like to mention that this has already been documented in many operating systems for decades. I don't know why POSIX does not mention the blanks. I agree it probably should. Here are some examples of real-world manuals already documenting the blanks: https://man.openbsd.org/UNIX-7/echo.1 [^] https://man.openbsd.org/4.4BSD-Lite2/echo.1 [^] https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-current/echo.1 [^] https://man.openbsd.org/FreeBSD-11.1/man1/echo.1 [^] https://man.openbsd.org/NetBSD-7.1/echo.1 [^] https://man.openbsd.org/ksh.1#echo_2 [^] https://man.openbsd.org/csh.1#echo [^] |
(0004191) shware_systems (reporter) 2018-12-22 22:37 |
The DESCRIPTION may omit it, but it is explicitly a normative requirement in the STDOUT section so this would be duplication. It may be better to shorten it to say: The echo utility writes its arguments to standard output. [xref See STDOUT] |
(0004192) kre (reporter) 2018-12-22 23:25 |
I see no need for any change, as Mark says in note 4191, the blank separator is already specified. What's more, I don't see a need for a forward pointer from the description to the STDOUT section - for all commands, the STDOUT part of the description gives any formatting requirements for the output, that always needs to be consulted. |
(0004193) shware_systems (reporter) 2018-12-23 16:47 |
Normally I wouldn't bother either, but the block of XSI escapes follows, and the Xref would skip people around that who are more interested in the base requirements only. |
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