> Hi, > > I noticed this about a week ago: > > head: `-1' option is obsolete; use `-n 1' > Try `head --help' for more information. > > and tail seems to do the same thing... > this is very annoying since it breaks a lot of scripts, > including configure > scripts to build packages... > > why is this obsoleted? > > And the most irritating part is that is not phased out, like > giving a warning > and then continue, but it only gives an error and stops. > > Rudmer
Do an "info coreutils" and read the section about standards conformance. In short, "export _POSIX2_VERSION=199209" in your profile will enable traditional behavior with head, tail & sort. -jrh I'll save you a few keystrokes. Here's the relevant piece: Standards conformance ===================== In a few cases, the GNU utilities' default behavior is incompatible with the POSIX standard. To suppress these incompatibilities, define the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable. Unless you are checking for POSIX conformance, you probably do not need to define `POSIXLY_CORRECT'. Newer versions of POSIX are occasionally incompatible with older versions. For example, older versions of POSIX required the command `sort +1' to sort based on the second and succeeding fields in each input line, but starting with POSIX 1003.1-2001 the same command is required to sort the file named `+1', and you must instead use the command `sort -k 2' to get the field-based sort. The GNU utilities normally conform to the version of POSIX that is standard for your system. To cause them to conform to a different version of POSIX, define the `_POSIX2_VERSION' environment variable to a value of the form YYYYMM specifying the year and month the standard was adopted. Two values are currently supported for `_POSIX2_VERSION': `199209' stands for POSIX 1003.2-1992, and `200112' stands for POSIX 1003.1-2001. For example, if you are running older software that assumes an older version of POSIX and uses `sort +1', `head -1', or `tail +1', you can work around the compatibility problems by setting `_POSIX2_VERSION=199209' in your environment. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
