On Wed, 2023-03-29 at 03:38 +0000, David wrote: > I think the formal specification of the fstab format would be > 'man 3 getfsent' because that is the canonical method to > parse /etc/fstab.
Uhm, but that doesn't really describe which fields are necessary either. So it would be the actual code which would be the definition... but that's typically a bad idea to use as a standard. Nevertheless, getfsent(3) still mentions "sw" and even "xx" and "rq". > Perhaps 'sw' in field 4 became obsolete. What does it achieve? > > It does seem redundant to have to specify both 'swap' and 'sw' > for every swap partition. And if we have to specify 'sw' in field 4, > how is it an "option"? Well I guess it's an indication for the 4th field *not* being optional and "defaults" not being considered (or even present back in BSD) for swap. > Anyway, just to be clear, I'm not the person advocating change here. Sure, me neither. :-) Just trying to find out what would be the "best" value (from a cosmetic PoV). For that purpose I posted at util-linux mailing list, asking for their opinion and whether fstab(5) could be clarified accordingly: https://lore.kernel.org/util-linux/45fc7a385b006d734011a11487fbfdda4333644e.ca...@christoph.anton.mitterer.name/T/#u I think this issue here can be put on hold, until things have been clarified there. > I am simply sharing the fact that I have configured swap in > /etc/fstab > with blank field 4,5 and 6, as I showed previously, for as long as I > can > remember, without experiencing any problem. And I have explained > my reasoning about that, when requested. Sure,.. but for that purpose, "sw" could be simply kept either (it also works). :-) This issue was really just from the cosmetic PoV, about what is considered to be the "canonical" way of doing it (if there's any). Thanks, Chris.