Subject: Re: bug#21130: test fail: 'tests/ls/stat-failed'

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 18:26:47 -0700

Assaf Gordon wrote:
> $ ./src/ls -Log d
> ./src/ls: cannot access d/file: Permission denied
> ./src/ls: cannot access d/chardev: Permission denied
> ./src/ls: cannot access d/blockdev: Permission denied
> ./src/ls: cannot access d/s: Permission denied
> total 0
> ?????????? ? ?            ? blockdev

Arguably this is a better result than what we normally get, and our test 
framework should allow it.

The argument is that if a directory is not searchable, an application should be 
able to discover its files' names (as they belong to the directory and not to 
the files), but not the files' attributes (as they belong to the files, not to 
the directory).  Admittedly this is a fine distinction.