The yes utility, when operating without POSIXLY_CORRECT set, cannot print
a literal "--version" or "--help" as its output since the usual long
option escape sequence "--" isn't recognised. For example :
yes --version
prints the version
yes -- --version
repeatedly prints "-- --version"
POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 yes --version
gives the desired behaviour.
Fixing this should be as simple as adding the code
if (argc > 1 && STREQ (argv[1], "--"))
{
--argc;
++argv;
}
used elsewhere in the sh-utils to implement the "--" option.
This is of course only a bug in the sense of the goal of GNU software
avoiding arbitrary limits.
This behaviour is found with sh-utils 2.0j (from alpha.gnu.org) and 2.0
(as shipped with RedHat 6.2).
- Callum McKenzie
