GNU bug report logs - #11631
Head command does not position file pointer correctly for negative line count

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Anoop Sharma <sendtoanoop <at> gmail.com>

Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2012 09:41:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Done: Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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From: "Voelker, Bernhard" <bernhard.voelker <at> siemens-enterprise.com>
To: Anoop Sharma <sendtoanoop <at> gmail.com>, "11631 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <11631 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: bug#11631: Head command does not position file pointer correctly for	negative line count
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2012 10:03:33 +0000

Anoop Sharma wrote:

> Head command does not position file pointer correctly for negative line
> count. Here is a demonstration of the problem.

The problem doesn't seem to be limited to negative
line counts. I replaced the 10 ABC lines by a number
sequence to demonstrate this issue clearer.

  $ seq 10 | ( head -n -2 ; echo xxx ; cat )
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  xxx
  $ seq 10 | ( head -n 2 ; echo xxx ; cat )
  1
  2
  xxx

So head eats all of the input. The info page is silent
about this.

Have a nice day,
Berny
This bug report was last modified 13 years and 46 days ago.

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