Juho-Pekka Kuitunen wrote:
> Reproduce example;
> $ echo "testdir/testfile" | xargs -I '{}' echo '{}', dir: $(echo dirname
> '{}') = $(dirname '{}')
Thank you for the report and the very nice test case. It made
debugging this problem so very much simpler.
> Expected output;
> testdir/testfile, dir: dirname testdir/testfile = testdir
>
> Actual output;
> testdir/testfile, dir: dirname testdir/testfile = .
Ah... But you have missed a critical point! :-) The $(...) is
expanded by the current shell and not by the xargs. Use echo to see
what you are asking.
$ echo xargs -I '{}' echo '{}', dir: $(echo dirname '{}') = $(dirname '{}')
xargs -I {} echo {}, dir: dirname {} = .
> This behavior seems to be limited to the xargs -I replace-str usage
> pattern, any other way I can think of running dirname works fine.
The problem is the $(...) which is running the dirname during the
earlier shell command line parsing pass and passing the result off to
the xargs command.
> Basename has similarly wonky behavior, it prints the full string
> instead of doing any stripping.
Also using $(...)? :-)
> Not sure if there's a bug involved (or if it's on the findutils or
> coreutils side). Could also just be something silly I'm overlooking.
> I've tested this with findutils 4.4.2 and coreutils 8.5 & 8.13 with
> identical results.
So... Not a bug. Agreed? (I am having a good chuckle. I hope you
will too.) We will close the bug then.
Bob
