"Shawn Walker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I don't know that what you say is necessarily true. Undocumented
> features are sometimes the most important ones to keep for backwards
> compatibility. Especially when it comes to programs like tar which
> people often use to do "backups."
POSIX says: If in doubt, only the documentation matters.
If someone uses a program in a way that has not been documented in the man
page, this person is using a side effect and cannot expect this behavor in a
later version. Shell scripts for this reason must be written in a way that
allow to replace the implementation of a program by another implementation that
is only based on the knowledge from the man page.
For archive formats, similar rules apply.
The POSIX standard verifies that it is possible to completely describe the
behavior of a program inside a man page.
Jörg
--
EMail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (uni)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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