The following reply was made to PR user/6573; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Jonathan Thornburg <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected], "Todd C. Miller" <[email protected]>,
        [email protected]
Subject: Re: user/6573: /usr/bin/gzip with long argument list core-dumps
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 20:19:24 -0500 (EST)

 I just noticed that I had a relevant environment variable set: my
 ~/.cshrc contains the line
   setenv GZIP '--best --no-name'
 (I put that in many years ago, and had long forgotten about it.)
 
 With this environment variable unset, gzip on my test case no longer
 core-dumps.  So... maybe this PR should (conceptually) be retitled to
 
   if GZIP environment variable is set to Gnu gzip options which we
   don't support, /usr/bin/gzip with long argument list core-dumps
 
 I still think this is a bug (well-behaved software should diagnose
 unknown/unsupported command-line options rather than core-dumping),
 but it's arguable a slightly less serious bug than I'd originally
 thought.
 
 ciao,
 
 -- 
 -- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" 
<[email protected]>
    Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
    "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
     powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
                                       -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

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