POSIX places requirements on both coreutils and the coreutils users. POSIX-conforming users are only allowed to use features that are part of the POSIX standard. For coreutils, POSIX conformance means that 100% of the standard is correctly implemented.
In no way does the standard prohibit an implementation from adding non-standard features, provided that those features do not conflict with standard usage. Thus, a POSIX-conforming "head" program may support a "-1" option. It may also support a "-2" option, and so on. This does not conflict with the filename. To open a filename that starts with a "-", a user is required to supply the "--" option first. Note that "head" is a historic BSD tool. You broke a shitload of stuff when you took out the old BSD options. See for yourself that the traditional BSD behavior is not actually prohibited for the implementation: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/head.html (It _is_ prohibited for POSIX-conformant _users_, but you support a great many non-conformant switches and thus are in no position to argue that way!) _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
