Subject: bug#7424: Tail -n doesn't work on Red-Hat Linux 5.5

From: Eric Blake <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:19:19 -0700

[as another netiquette tip: please don't top-post on technical lists]

On 11/17/2010 12:03 PM, Parsons, Larry wrote:
> Eric, All,
> 
> I just went to another box and entered in the command that you said shouldn't work. It works just the way you said it shouldn't.

Please, so that we can have some idea of what you are seeing, include an
example of what you typed, what happened, and what you wanted to have
happen.  You _still_ haven't told us what you think is a bug, so we
_still_ don't have any idea how to help you, other than to point you to
FAQ that may or may not be relevant to your situation.

We do appreciate the time you've taken to try and report something, but
there are some steps you could take to make your request go a lot further:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

Here's an example report that would qualify as more informative:

"I reduced things down to this simple testcase:

$ printf 'a\nb\n' | tail -1
b

but since I didn't type the POSIX 2008 spelling of:

tail -n -1

I was surprised that it did the same thing by printing the last line
instead of being a syntax error"

> and I didn't realize it was a public forum.

Most bug reporting emails are publicly archived; and it's always safer
to start from that assumption.

> However I did copy everyone you did.

Ah, but my email didn't have an unenforceable disclaimer tacked on by my
employer.

> Please feel free to repond and teach me about netiquette while you just lack any kind of etiquette.

My original reply was terse to match the terseness of your original
report.  I'm sorry if my reply unintentionally came across as harsh or
demeaning; that certainly was not my intent, and the text-only medium of
email lacks emotion and tone of voice that convey the rest of the
meaning behind a spoken message.  Whether or not I'm always successful
at my attempts to be polite may be another matter, but you may feel free
to take that up with me off-list if you have suggestions for how I could
improve in my interpersonal skills.

-- 
Eric Blake   [email-masked]    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org