Hello,

I'm using GNU coreutils 8.30, I found that the printf tool is broken while coding a shell script.

andrea@Workstation:~$ printf --version

bash: printf: --: invalid option

printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments]

I tried with coreutils 8.32 too with the same error.

PRINTF(1) man page reports the option valid:

NAME

       printf - format and print data

SYNOPSIS

       printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]...

       printf OPTION

DESCRIPTION

       Print ARGUMENT(s) according to FORMAT, or execute according to OPTION:

       --help display this help and exit

       --version

              output version information and exit

...

the option --help works.

I have another issue with printf, I wanted to print a string that starts with "-" and printf parse it like an option:

andrea@Workstation:~$ printf "->"

bash: printf: ->: invalid option

printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments]

I'm doing something wrong?

Best Regards,

Andrea Dari