View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0001221 | 1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2 | Shell and Utilities | public | 2018-12-22 21:02 | 2019-02-23 14:05 |
| Reporter | Don Cragun | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | normal | Severity | Objection | Type | Omission |
| Status | Closed | Resolution | Withdrawn | ||
| 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). | ||||
| 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. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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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 |
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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] |
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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. |
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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. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-12-22 21:02 | Don Cragun | New Issue | |
| 2018-12-22 21:02 | Don Cragun | Name | => Donald Cragun |
| 2018-12-22 21:02 | Don Cragun | Section | => echo |
| 2018-12-22 21:02 | Don Cragun | Page Number | => 2674 |
| 2018-12-22 21:02 | Don Cragun | Line Number | => 87116-87117 |
| 2018-12-22 21:02 | Don Cragun | Interp Status | => --- |
| 2018-12-22 21:21 | schwarze | Note Added: 0004190 | |
| 2018-12-22 22:37 | shware_systems | Note Added: 0004191 | |
| 2018-12-22 23:25 | kre | Note Added: 0004192 | |
| 2018-12-23 16:47 | shware_systems | Note Added: 0004193 | |
| 2019-02-23 14:05 | Don Cragun | Status | New => Closed |
| 2019-02-23 14:05 | Don Cragun | Resolution | Open => Withdrawn |
