The attached email indicates that findutils' current treatment of the -I and -L options is, I think, correct. I will update the documentation to explain the behaviour soon.
James.
--- Begin Message ---James Youngman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote, on 19 Jun 2005: > > The functionality of the -L and -I (uppercase i) options by themselves > is quite clear. However, how should they work in combination? > Specifically, what should the output of this be? > > # Create a file containing the numbers 1 to 10, one per line > ( while echo yes ; do true; done ) |sed -n -e '=' -e '10 q' > short-file.txt > > # This is the test of interest > xargs -L 5 -I Z echo foo Z bar < short-file.txt I think a formal interpretation would have to say that the standard is unclear and no conformance distinction can be made. > Should xargs produce (my indentation) > > foo 1 bar > foo 2 bar > foo 3 bar > foo 4 bar > foo 5 bar > foo 6 bar > foo 7 bar > foo 8 bar > foo 9 bar > foo 10 bar > > or should it produce > > foo 1 2 3 4 5 bar > foo 6 7 8 9 10 bar > > ... or, should this depend on the order in which -L and -I are > specified on the command line (ugh)? You say "ugh", but that is exactly how the standard specifies that the conflict between -L and -n is handled ("The -L and -n options are mutually-exclusive; the last one specified shall take effect."). > IRIX and GNU findutils (as at version 4.2.23) produce the former while > *BSD produces the latter. I'm at home today so don't have any other > systems handy for testing. Solaris, HP-UX and Unixware all produce the former. However, if you switch the order (i.e. xargs -I Z -L 5 echo foo Z bar) they all produce: foo Z bar 1 2 3 4 5 foo Z bar 6 7 8 9 10 as does GNU findutils (4.2.21). I.e. the -L causes the earlier -I to be ignored. So it is looking like the appropriate way to handle this in the next revision would be to have -L and -I cancel each other out, the same as -L and -n do. Actually, all three conflict with each other, so the standard should probably say "The -I, -L and -n options are all mutually-exclusive; the last one specified shall take effect." -- Geoff Clare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Open Group, Thames Tower, Station Road, Reading, RG1 1LX, England
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