On 22/02/2023 22:07, Michael Coleman wrote:
Hi,
The (RHEL 7) man page for GNU 'chown' has (only) this for the '--reference'
flag:
use RFILE's owner and group rather than specifying OWNER:GROUP values
which omits the crucial second sentence, included in the info tree:
Change the user and group of each FILE to be the same as those of
REF_FILE. If REF_FILE is a symbolic link, do not use the user and
group of the symbolic link, but rather those of the file it refers
to.
(Note that '--no-deference' doesn't affect this behavior.)
I can't be sure, but I think the GNU build itself is generating this man page,
as opposed to it having been created by RHEL.
I understand that the man pages are secondary and brief, but they shouldn't be
actively misleading, IMO.
It is worth stating that in the man page,
especially since one might think --no-dereference might change behavior.
Fixing this with the attached.
Marking this as done.
thanks,
Pádraig
From c97c40c3b4f5338b1c8689002f50d523b9cff2a0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?P=C3=A1draig=20Brady?= <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2023 15:22:14 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] doc: chgrp,chmod,chown: state --reference always dereferences
* src/chgrp.c (usage): State that --reference always
dereferences symbolic links.
* src/chmod.c (usage): Likewise.
* src/chown.c (usage): Likewise.
Fixes https://bugs.gnu.org/61720
---
src/chgrp.c | 4 ++--
src/chmod.c | 3 ++-
src/chown.c | 4 ++--
3 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/src/chgrp.c b/src/chgrp.c
index e695328e9..141413352 100644
--- a/src/chgrp.c
+++ b/src/chgrp.c
@@ -136,8 +136,8 @@ With --reference, change the group of each FILE to that of RFILE.\n\
--preserve-root fail to operate recursively on '/'\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- --reference=RFILE use RFILE's group rather than specifying a\n\
- GROUP value\n\
+ --reference=RFILE use RFILE's group rather than specifying a GROUP.\n\
+ RFILE is always dereferenced if a symbolic link.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-R, --recursive operate on files and directories recursively\n\
diff --git a/src/chmod.c b/src/chmod.c
index a0b83a8f7..e48736e11 100644
--- a/src/chmod.c
+++ b/src/chmod.c
@@ -393,7 +393,8 @@ With --reference, change the mode of each FILE to that of RFILE.\n\
--preserve-root fail to operate recursively on '/'\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- --reference=RFILE use RFILE's mode instead of MODE values\n\
+ --reference=RFILE use RFILE's mode instead of specifying MODE values.\n\
+ RFILE is always dereferenced if a symbolic link.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-R, --recursive change files and directories recursively\n\
diff --git a/src/chown.c b/src/chown.c
index f298b6081..d4ae24bec 100644
--- a/src/chown.c
+++ b/src/chown.c
@@ -113,8 +113,8 @@ With --reference, change the owner and group of each FILE to those of RFILE.\n\
--preserve-root fail to operate recursively on '/'\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- --reference=RFILE use RFILE's owner and group rather than\n\
- specifying OWNER:GROUP values\n\
+ --reference=RFILE use RFILE's owner and group rather than specifying\n\
+ OWNER:GROUP values. RFILE is always dereferenced.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-R, --recursive operate on files and directories recursively\n\
--
2.26.2
