Your message dated Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:59:22 -0400
with message-id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
and subject line Re: Bug#471264: Man page says one thing, binary does another
has caused the Debian Bug report #471264,
regarding coreutils: tail +N doesn't work
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
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--
471264: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=471264
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: coreutils
Version: 6.10-3
Severity: normal
Hi guys,
I think this little session says it all:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ cat > dummy <<EOF
> 1
> 2
> 3
> 4
> 5
> 6
> EOF
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ tail -3 dummy
4
5
6
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ tail --lines=+3 dummy
3
4
5
6
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ tail +3 dummy
tail: cannot open `+3' for reading: No such file or directory
==> dummy <==
1
2
3
4
5
6
That is, +3 is treated as a file-name instead of as --lines=+3,
like it always had, and like the docs still say it should.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.23-1-686 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Versions of packages coreutils depends on:
ii libacl1 2.2.45-1 Access control list shared library
ii libc6 2.7-9 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libselinux1 2.0.35-1 SELinux shared libraries
coreutils recommends no packages.
-- no debconf information
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 02:58:05PM +1000, you wrote:
>Yet tail +N does not work.
Try tail -n +N
Sure, but my point is the documentation is saying something completely
different, and incorrect.
Except that it isn't. It says "the first character of N (the number of
lines or bytes" and also documents -n and -c. I showed you how to use
"-n N" where N begins with a +, so I'm not sure any more where your
confusion is. You my be referring to "tail -N", but that's a usage that
isn't even on the man page, so I'm not sure how you can say the
documentation of "tail -n N" conflicts with it. If you check the info
page you'll find a rather long explanation of exactly what is supported
in "tail -N" syntax, and what environment variables, etc., influence
that behavior. It's complicated enough that it is not summarized on the
man page.
Mike Stone
--- End Message ---
