On Sun, Jan 5, 2025 at 11:38 AM Andreas Grünbacher <[email protected]> wrote: ... > > Technically, I don't see how that POSIX guidance for patch can justify > > this behavior, since patch's output file name is just "b" in this > > example: > > > > $ f=$'a\na'; echo a>"$f"; echo b>b; diff -u b "$f" |patch b > > patch: **** quoted string "a\n..." contains newline > > Indeed, rejecting patches because they contain filenames that aren't > even used is not helpful. > > > But their suggestion to diagnose or even fail for NL-afflicted file > > names is fine advice, so I shouldn't be splitting hairs with the > > example above. IMHO, it is fine and even desirable to discourage > > NL-afflicted files. > > > > Re my current question (how to adjust that diff manual section), I'm > > happy to make it say that all special characters are covered, > > **except** newline, whose presence in any file name is strongly > > discouraged. > > How about we change diff and patch to accept but warn about newlines > in filenames?
I'll be happy to make diffutils warn about NL-afflicted file names, but not before the impending release.
