On 11/04/2010 09:15 AM, Jim Meyering wrote:
>> Yes, a self-built coreutils on that machine can once again 'touch'.  I'm
>> pushing this.  Does this also deserve a NEWS entry?  I'm not quite sure
>> how it would be worded; maybe:
>>
>>   cp, mv, and touch no longer crash when setting file times on Solaris
>>   10 [latent bug since at least coreutils-5.97, exposed by recent
>>   Solaris patch]
> 
> Thanks for handling that.
> I think that anything that evokes a crash will always deserve a NEWS entry.
> 
> It's ok to say we're not sure.
> There's a limit to how much time we can spend on this sort of archeology.
> 
>     [a latent utimens.m4 bug introduced in 8.1 was triggered only by a
>     recent Solaris 10 update; there may have been another going back as
>     far as 5.97]

Thanks for the wording suggestions.

>
> If you can easily find an ID for the offending Solaris 10 patch
> it'd be nice to mention it here or in the commit log.
>

Looking at this page for an idea of Solaris patch ids,
http://blogs.sun.com/patch/entry/solaris_10_kernel_patchid_progression

and the uname information of the machine I see the problem on:
SunOS xxx 5.10 Generic_144488-01 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000 Solaris

I'm going ahead with this NEWS entry:

  cp, install, mv, and touch no longer crash when setting file times
  on Solaris 10 Update 9 [Solaris PatchID 144488 and newer expose a
  latent bug introduced in coreutils 8.1, and possibly a second latent
  bug going at least as far back as coreutils 5.97]

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake@redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org