Brian Dessent <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Eric Blake wrote: > >> machines. Finally, what syntax did you have in mind? It is probably >> possible to write a shell script that has that exact same syntax, but uses >> existing commands, to achieve the task without needing to add a new coreutil. > > I agree that for light duty a few simple shell commands are probably > best. However, there is something to be said for writing a complete > solution once and then reusing it, rather than reinventing something > every time it comes up. I'm thinking specifically about all the random > trivialities and corner cases: > > - securely choosing a unique filename for the temporary file > - preventing a possible race when replacing the original > - coping with running out of space or being interrupted > - ensuring that temporary files are always cleaned up > > I think these are all examples of things that traditionally the > coreutils have had to worry about above and beyond the basic > functionality of a command, so it's not totally unreasonable to make > such a request. The portability argument of course still holds, and if > that's a concern it's much better to do it with the shell fragment -- > but for some people portability is not an issue. > > In addition, there's the possibility of doing this in-place if there's > not enough free space and/or if the size of the header fits into memory, > however that is dangerous since you suffer data loss if interrupted.
You make a good case. As usual, for suggestions like this, I encourage people to implement the tool first as a Perl, Python or Ruby script -- and do it robustly. This is where it'd be good to be able to point people to the (languishing?) misc-utils project for examples of similar tools. Then, if/once everyone agrees that the tool is useful enough and has the right functionality and options, it'd be time to rewrite it in C for coreutils. _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
