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ID Category Severity Type Date Submitted Last Update
0001774 [Issue 8 drafts] Base Definitions and Headers Editorial Omission 2023-08-31 17:45 2024-05-23 14:38
Reporter eblake View Status public  
Assigned To
Priority normal Resolution Open  
Status New   Product Version Draft 3
Name Eric Blake
Organization Red Hat
User Reference ebb.file format
Section XBD 5 File Format Notation
Page Number 114
Line Number 3581
Final Accepted Text
Summary 0001774: Support ' <apostrophe> as a format specifier flag character in utilities
Description [Page numbers against draft 3 for Issue 8; this will need to be updated once Issue 8 is finalized]

During the 31 Aug 2023 teleconference, it was noted that many, but not all, shells have already implemented support for printf "%'i" 1000 outputting thousands separators (for example, producing "1,000" in the en_US.UTF-8 locale), matching what is already specified for the printf( ) function under <CX> shading. However, we also discussed that standardizing this would be a feature addition, and therefore too late for Issue 8, and thus not fit for inclusion in 0001771
Desired Action We have the option of adding a description of the ' flag directly to XBD 5 (page 114 line 3581), but then we have to inspect all other utilities in XSH that refer to XBD 5 to see what the fallout may be. Or we can just modify the printf utility in XSH directly (page 3269 line 110984 EXTENDED DESCRIPTION), while other utilities that support formatted output (such as awk's printf statement, page 2602 line 85295) continue to be up to individual implementations whether to support the extension.

At present, this bug is still a placeholder reminding us to actually come up with proposed changes for Issue 9.
Tags No tags attached.
Attached Files

- Relationships
related to 0001771Closed support or reserve %q as printf-utility format specifier 

-  Notes
(0006796)
geoffclare (manager)
2024-05-23 14:38
edited on: 2024-05-23 14:52

I searched the (Issue 8) troff source for cross-references to File Format Notation and the only ones where it is used to specify how a utility processes a format string are in:

awk printf statement
pax -o listopt=format
printf utility

Since the printf and awk utilities have already been mentioned, the only new one to consider is pax. I could see the apostrophe flag being a useful feature in pax for things like:

pax -v -o listopt=".... %'(size)i ...."


- Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2023-08-31 17:45 eblake New Issue
2023-08-31 17:45 eblake Name => Eric Blake
2023-08-31 17:45 eblake Organization => Red Hat
2023-08-31 17:45 eblake User Reference => ebb.file format
2023-08-31 17:45 eblake Section => XBD 5 File Format Notation
2023-08-31 17:45 eblake Page Number => 114
2023-08-31 17:45 eblake Line Number => 3581
2023-08-31 17:46 eblake Relationship added related to 0001771
2024-05-23 14:38 geoffclare Note Added: 0006796
2024-05-23 14:39 geoffclare Note Edited: 0006796
2024-05-23 14:52 geoffclare Note Edited: 0006796


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