Austin Group Defect Tracker

Aardvark Mark IV


Viewing Issue Simple Details Jump to Notes ] Issue History ] Print ]
ID Category Severity Type Date Submitted Last Update
0001687 [Issue 8 drafts] Base Definitions and Headers Objection Clarification Requested 2023-05-03 10:30 2023-07-06 10:37
Reporter geoffclare View Status public  
Assigned To
Priority normal Resolution Accepted  
Status Applied   Product Version Draft 3
Name Geoff Clare
Organization The Open Group
User Reference
Section 5 File Format Notation
Page Number 115
Line Number 3632
Final Accepted Text
Summary 0001687: Mismatch between blanks in file formats and default IFS
Description In the resolution of bug 0001532 the stty example code for restoring the terminal size uses awk because the stty utility is allowed to include blanks from the current locale (not just blank from the portable character set) around the numeric fields. It was mentioned in Note: 0005661 that if we change XBD chapter 5 so that it allows implementations to add blanks only from the portable character set, then the example code could be changed back to using shell field splitting instead of using awk.

I believe the reason for allowing blanks around numeric fields was because of implementation differences noted during work on the original POSIX.2 drafts, such as the output of "wc -l" including leading blanks on some systems but not others. These differences at the time would only have involved space and tab characters, no other blanks, so there was no reason to allow other blanks in the original POSIX.2-1992 standard.

There are likely a large number of applications that expect to be able to use the default IFS to do field splitting on such output, and at the moment this is not guaranteed to work (in locales other than C and POSIX). We should change that.

For consistency, the other use of <blank> in XBD chapter 5 should change to match.
Desired Action On page 113 line 3543 section 5, change:
' ' (An empty character position.) Represents one or more <blank> characters.
to:
' ' (An empty character position.) Represents one or more <blank> characters from the portable character set.

On page 115 line 3632 section 5, change:
with <blank> characters
to:
with <blank> characters from the portable character set

On page 3379 line 115321 section stty, change:
stty size | awk '{printf "stty rows %d cols %d", $1, $2}'
to:
printf "stty rows %d cols %d" $(stty size)

Tags applied_after_i8d3, issue8
Attached Files

- Relationships
related to 0001532Applied "stty -g" output should not have to be split 

There are no notes attached to this issue.

- Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2023-05-03 10:30 geoffclare New Issue
2023-05-03 10:30 geoffclare Name => Geoff Clare
2023-05-03 10:30 geoffclare Organization => The Open Group
2023-05-03 10:30 geoffclare Section => 5 File Format Notation
2023-05-03 10:30 geoffclare Page Number => 115
2023-05-03 10:30 geoffclare Line Number => 3632
2023-05-03 10:32 geoffclare Relationship added related to 0001532
2023-06-15 15:48 Don Cragun Status New => Resolved
2023-06-15 15:48 Don Cragun Resolution Open => Accepted
2023-06-15 15:48 Don Cragun Tag Attached: issue8
2023-07-06 10:37 geoffclare Status Resolved => Applied
2023-07-06 10:37 geoffclare Tag Attached: applied_after_i8d3


Mantis 1.1.6[^]
Copyright © 2000 - 2008 Mantis Group
Powered by Mantis Bugtracker