Hi Paul,
I should have waited a few minutes before pushing. Oops...
Paul Eggert <egg...@cs.ucla.edu> writes:
> On 2025-08-03 11:08, Collin Funk wrote:
>
>> + readlink will behave as if the -v option is used if the
>> + POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is defined.
>
> This isn't true if -q/--quiet/-s/--silent is specified. I would reword
> this to something like "readlink now defaults to being verbose if
> POSIXLY_CORRECT is set."
True, that is more accurate.
> The --usage message and doc/coreutils.texi should be updated to match
> the new behavior.
I added a brief mention in doc/coreutils.texi. I guess it could be made
more explicit by mentioning under --silent and --quiet as well.
I only saw POSIXLY_CORRECT mentioned in the --help message for 'df' and
'du' for the block size difference. So I assumed it was not nessecary.
How about the wording and formatting of the attatched patch?
> There's a spurious empty line inserted into readlink.c.
I rewrote v2 based on v1 and left that. Oops.
Collin
>From 2ff3c65e940f152a7b56395a5828c052f30dba50 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
Message-ID: <2ff3c65e940f152a7b56395a5828c052f30dba50.1754249985.git.collin.fu...@gmail.com>
From: Collin Funk <collin.fu...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2025 12:33:55 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] readlink: improve documentation for POSIXLY_CORRECT in --help
* NEWS: Improve wording to not imply POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 readlink -q will
be verbose.
* src/readlink.c (usage): Mention the affect of POSIXLY_CORRECT on
-s (--silent), -q (--quiet), and -v (--verbose) in the help message.
(main): Remove spurious newline added by previous commit.
* doc/coreutils.texi (readlink invocation): Mention that -s (--silent)
and -q (--quiet) are not the default when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
---
NEWS | 4 ++--
doc/coreutils.texi | 6 +++++-
src/readlink.c | 7 ++++---
3 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 9839aeb87..a9132bbcf 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -7,8 +7,8 @@ GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
'factor' is now much faster at identifying large prime numbers,
and significantly faster on composite numbers greater than 2^128.
- readlink will behave as if the -v option is used if the
- POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is defined.
+ readlink now defaults to being verbose if the POSIXLY_CORRECT
+ environment variable is set.
** Bug fixes
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index f268c9249..c5ecf2376 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -11462,7 +11462,11 @@ @node readlink invocation
@opindex -q
@opindex --silent
@opindex --quiet
-Suppress most error messages. On by default.
+Suppress most error messages.
+
+@vindex POSIXLY_CORRECT
+This option is on by default if the @env{POSIXLY_CORRECT} environment
+variable is not set.
@item -v
@itemx --verbose
diff --git a/src/readlink.c b/src/readlink.c
index 9e7f2320a..e77818592 100644
--- a/src/readlink.c
+++ b/src/readlink.c
@@ -78,8 +78,10 @@ usage (int status)
without requirements on components existence\n\
-n, --no-newline do not output the trailing delimiter\n\
-q, --quiet\n\
- -s, --silent suppress most error messages (on by default)\n\
- -v, --verbose report error messages\n\
+ -s, --silent suppress most error messages (on by default\n\
+ if POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set)\n\
+ -v, --verbose report error messages (on by default if\n\
+ POSIXLY_CORRECT is set)\n\
-z, --zero end each output line with NUL, not newline\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
@@ -163,7 +165,6 @@ main (int argc, char **argv)
char *value = (can_mode != -1
? canonicalize_filename_mode (fname, can_mode)
: areadlink_with_size (fname, 63));
-
if (value)
{
fputs (value, stdout);
--
2.50.1
