In a private email, Philip Guenther has observed that awk does not completely folow the POSIX option guidelines. [-safe] is not [-s,-a,-f,-e] but a single option!
The right patch is then: --- main.c.orig Mon Jan 29 15:01:20 2007 +++ main.c Mon Jan 29 15:52:47 2007 @@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ cmdname = __progname; if (argc == 1) { fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s [-safe] [-V] [-d[n]] [-F fs] " - "[-v var=value] [prog | -f progfile]\n\tfile ...\n", + "[-v var=value] [prog | -f progfile]\n\t file ...\n", cmdname); exit(1); } @@ -110,10 +110,6 @@ case 'v': /* -v a=1 to be done NOW. one -v for each */ if (argv[1][2] == '\0' && --argc > 1 && isclvar((++argv)[1])) setclvar(argv[1]); - break; - case 'm': /* more memory: -mr=record, -mf=fields */ - /* no longer supported */ - WARNING("obsolete option %s ignored", argv[1]); break; case 'd': dbg = atoi(&argv[1][2]); The patch for awk.1 is obviously not required then. I really appreciate the feedback of Philip Guenther. I was obviously wrong. Jason: can you, please, apply the right patch? I am sorry for the mistake, I should have read the man page carefully... I am just not accustomed to multicharacter options in Unix. Igor.