Thank you for opening this bug and helping make Ubuntu better. This is not a bug. Coreutils (as most of GNU packages) uses Texinfo as the primary source for documentation. The man pages are a summary *only*; for full docs, the user is referred to 'info':
The full documentation for md5sum is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and md5sum programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'md5sum invocation' should give you access to the complete manual. As such, closing this as not-a-bug. ** Changed in: coreutils (Ubuntu) Status: Confirmed => Invalid -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to coreutils in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1009045 Title: md5sum 'backslash-in-filename' feature is not documented in man page Status in “coreutils” package in Ubuntu: Invalid Bug description: Encountered in Description : Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS Release : 10.04 using md5sum (GNU coreutils) 7.4 $ apt-cache policy coreutils coreutils: Installed: 7.4-2ubuntu3 Candidate: 7.4-2ubuntu3 Version table: *** 7.4-2ubuntu3 0 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/main Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 7.4-2ubuntu2 0 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages Related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/coreutils/+bug/53584 The following information is in "info coreutils 'md5sum invocation'" For each FILE, `md5sum' outputs the MD5 checksum, a flag indicating a binary or text input file, and the file name. If FILE contains a backslash or newline, the line is started with a backslash, and each problematic character in the file name is escaped with a backslash, making the output unambiguous even in the presence of arbitrary file names. If FILE is omitted or specified as `-', standard input is read. The corresponding section in the man page reads as follows: The sums are computed as described in RFC 1321. When checking, the input should be a former output of this program. The default mode is to print a line with checksum, a character indicating type (`*' for binary, ` ' for text), and name for each FILE. The documentation of the behaviour of md5sum when given filenames containing backslashes is missing from the man page, and was unexpected behaviour when I first encountered it. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/coreutils/+bug/1009045/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp