Subject: Re: bug#8420: dirname

From: Eric Blake <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:02:14 -0600

tag 8420 + invalid
thanks

On 04/04/2011 07:43 AM, Michele Marigliano wrote:
> Hi, 
> 
>  
> 
> I execute the following bash command on RH 5.3 
> 
> CURRENT_DIR=`/usr/bin/dirname $0`
> 
> /usr/bin/dirname: invalid option -- b

Thanks for the report.  However, this is not a bug in dirname, but in
your usage pattern.  You are invoking "dirname -bash", which dirname
(rightly) interprets as the attempt to be the -b option, but dirname
does not have a -b option.  You need to use -- to mark the end of
options and the start of arguments:

dirname -- "$0"

> dirname (GNU coreutils) 5.97

Wow, that's old.  The latest stable version is 8.10.

> $ /usr/bin/dirname --version
> 
> dirname (GNU coreutils) 5.2.1

Wow, that's even older, but same story.

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