GNU bug report logs - #9450
Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several files

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Laurent TARRISSE" <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
To: <bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org>
Subject: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several files
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 15:53:10 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi

Here this a strange behaviour using 'dirname' with joker filename:

>ll  /tmp/*.out
ls: /tmp/*.out: No such file or directory
>dirname /tmp/*.out
/tmp

That's OK. But if several files match the argument given :

>ll  /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/*.HL
-rw-r--r--  1 qualiac qualiac 20715696 Sep  6 02:15 /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/M399111H.HL
-rw-r--r--  1 qualiac qualiac  1181326 Sep  6 02:16 /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/T399111H.HL
-rw-r--r--  1 qualiac qualiac   225012 Sep  6 02:15 /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/T399211H.HL
>dirname  /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/*.HL
dirname: too many arguments
Try `dirname --help' for more information.

That's bad. If I try:

>dirname '/home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/*.HL'
/home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission

That's OK.

Could 'dirname' process only its first parameter ?

Thanks.


----------------------------------------------
UNIX VERSION:
----------------------------------------------
>uname -a
Linux jdm-qualiac-srv-trv.midilibre.com 2.6.9-100.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Feb 1 12:04:42 EST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>uname -r
2.6.9-100.ELsmp
>cat /etc/issue
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 9)
Kernel \r on an \m

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #8 received at 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
To: Laurent TARRISSE <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
Cc: 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several
	files
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:24:17 -0600

9450 tag wishlist
thanks

On 09/06/2011 07:53 AM, Laurent TARRISSE wrote:
> Hi
>
> Here this a strange behaviour using 'dirname' with joker filename:

The term is 'wildcard', not 'joker'

> dirname: too many arguments
> Try `dirname --help' for more information.

Thanks for the report.  To some degree, this is expected behavior: POSIX 
requires that portable shell scripts pass exactly one argument to 
dirname, so passing 0 or more than 1 arguments is necessarily in the 
realm of non-portable code, and we would rather error out if we don't 
have any better defined semantics for an extension.

> Could 'dirname' process only its first parameter ?

No.  But there _has_ been requests in the past to add an extension to 
GNU coreutils to match BSD dirname/basename semantics of optionally 
taking more than one parameter:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2010-05/msg00015.html

But so far, no one has submitted patches.  Therefore, I'll keep this bug 
report open, but tag it as a wishlist.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake <at> redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

Message #11 received at 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Laurent TARRISSE" <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
To: "Eric Blake" <eblake <at> redhat.com>
Cc: 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several
	files
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 16:37:29 +0200

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Blake" <eblake <at> redhat.com>
To: "Laurent TARRISSE" <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
Cc: <9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several 
files


> 9450 tag wishlist
> thanks
>
> On 09/06/2011 07:53 AM, Laurent TARRISSE wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> Here this a strange behaviour using 'dirname' with joker filename:
>
> The term is 'wildcard', not 'joker'

Please accept my apologizes. I'm french :)

>
>> dirname: too many arguments
>> Try `dirname --help' for more information.
>
> Thanks for the report.  To some degree, this is expected behavior: POSIX 
> requires that portable shell scripts pass exactly one argument to dirname, 
> so passing 0 or more than 1 arguments is necessarily in the realm of 
> non-portable code, and we would rather error out if we don't have any 
> better defined semantics for an extension.
>

OK for the answer.

>> Could 'dirname' process only its first parameter ?
>
> No.  But there _has_ been requests in the past to add an extension to GNU 
> coreutils to match BSD dirname/basename semantics of optionally taking 
> more than one parameter:
>
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2010-05/msg00015.html
>
> But so far, no one has submitted patches.  Therefore, I'll keep this bug 
> report open, but tag it as a wishlist.
>

Just let me explain... we had to reuse unix scripts, primarily written for 
HP UX

   >uname -a
   HP-UX ppbmo B.11.23 U ia64 3204054692 unlimited-user license

Some of our scripts, who did function perfectly on HP-UX for several years, 
encountered problems once moved on Linux platform.
One reason is due to dirname : on HP UX I can give several arguments to 
dirname, and as you say, on Linux I cannot. That's all. ;)




> -- 
> Eric Blake   eblake <at> redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
> Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org 

Message #14 received at 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
To: Laurent TARRISSE <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
Cc: 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several
	files
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 11:36:05 -0600

Laurent TARRISSE wrote:
> Just let me explain... we had to reuse unix scripts, primarily
> written for HP UX
> 
>    >uname -a
>    HP-UX ppbmo B.11.23 U ia64 3204054692 unlimited-user license
> 
> Some of our scripts, who did function perfectly on HP-UX for several
> years, encountered problems once moved on Linux platform.
> One reason is due to dirname : on HP UX I can give several arguments
> to dirname, and as you say, on Linux I cannot. That's all. ;)

On HP-UX if you give several option arguments to dirname then the
HP-UX dirname would handle the first argument and then return an
error due to the extra arguments.  See this example:

  $ /usr/bin/dirname /one/two/three /four/five /six/seven
  /one/two

  $ echo $?
  1

  $ /usr/bin/dirname /one/two/three
  /one/two

  $ echo $?
  0

It is an error on HP-UX dirname to supply extra arguments too.  But
your scripts must be ignoring the error.  GNU dirname is simply
reporting the error more loudly.  :-)

What is your script expecting to happen with the extra arguments?
Surely that would also be a bug in your script since those extra
arguments are not getting processed.

Bob

Message #17 received at 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Laurent TARRISSE" <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
To: "Bob Proulx" <bob <at> proulx.com>
Cc: 9450 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several
	files
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 09:21:45 +0200

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Proulx" <bob <at> proulx.com>


> Laurent TARRISSE wrote:
>> Just let me explain... we had to reuse unix scripts, primarily
>> written for HP UX
>>
>>    >uname -a
>>    HP-UX ppbmo B.11.23 U ia64 3204054692 unlimited-user license
>>
>> Some of our scripts, who did function perfectly on HP-UX for several
>> years, encountered problems once moved on Linux platform.
>> One reason is due to dirname : on HP UX I can give several arguments
>> to dirname, and as you say, on Linux I cannot. That's all. ;)
>
> On HP-UX if you give several option arguments to dirname then the
> HP-UX dirname would handle the first argument and then return an
> error due to the extra arguments.  See this example:
>
>  $ /usr/bin/dirname /one/two/three /four/five /six/seven
>  /one/two
>
>  $ echo $?
>  1
>
>  $ /usr/bin/dirname /one/two/three
>  /one/two
>
>  $ echo $?
>  0
>
> It is an error on HP-UX dirname to supply extra arguments too.  But
> your scripts must be ignoring the error.  GNU dirname is simply
> reporting the error more loudly.  :-)

Yes, my script doesn't care about the return code.
I use the dirname to extract the path from a given file, and then
do a 'cd' command to that path :
   MY_PATH=`dirname $1`
   cd $MY_PATH
As you say, HP-UX dirname returns 1, but neveetheless outputs the path
of the first argument, and it's just what I expected him to do ! :))

> What is your script expecting to happen with the extra arguments?
> Surely that would also be a bug in your script since those extra
> arguments are not getting processed.

No because my script is less or more something equal to the FTP 'put' or
'mput' commands : you give it a file name as an argument, this file name can
contain a wildcard, so it can actually match several files of the 
filesystem.
The 'bug' appeared on Linux, because dirname doesn't output the path when
several arguments are passed to it. :))


> Bob 

Message #22 received at 9450-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Laurent TARRISSE <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
Cc: 9450-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several
	files
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2011 07:33:30 -0700

On 09/07/11 00:21, Laurent TARRISSE wrote:
> The 'bug' appeared on Linux, because dirname doesn't output the path when
> several arguments are passed to it. :)

The same 'bug' will also appear on Solaris 10; its
dirname does the same thing as GNU/Linux's dirname.

I'm afraid you're fighting an uphill battle here.
I'd fix the script rather than expecting
other implementations to match HP-UX's quirks.

I'm marking this as "done" since I don't expect
the GNU/Linux version to change.

Message #25 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: wyrm <at> haell.com
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several
	files
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 07:10:23 -0700

On 2011-09-07 at 09:21:45 +0200, ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com wrote:
> Yes, my script doesn't care about the return code. I use the dirname
> to extract the path from a given file, and then do a 'cd' command to
> that path :
>     MY_PATH=`dirname $1`
>     cd $MY_PATH
> As you say, HP-UX dirname returns 1, but neveetheless outputs the path
> of the first argument, and it's just what I expected him to do ! :))

Place some quotes around the argument, so that the variable will expand
but the glob won't. Something like:
	MY_PATH=`dirname "$1"`
will probably do what you expect.

-- 
Confucius is inscrutable.
God is ineffable.
Beer is inevitable.

Message #26 received at 9450-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Laurent TARRISSE" <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
To: "Paul Eggert" <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: 9450-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9450: Bug report on 'dirname' : when jokers match several
	files
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 16:48:52 +0200

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Eggert" <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>


> On 09/07/11 00:21, Laurent TARRISSE wrote:
>> The 'bug' appeared on Linux, because dirname doesn't output the path when
>> several arguments are passed to it. :)
>
> The same 'bug' will also appear on Solaris 10; its
> dirname does the same thing as GNU/Linux's dirname.
>
> I'm afraid you're fighting an uphill battle here.
> I'd fix the script rather than expecting
> other implementations to match HP-UX's quirks.
>
> I'm marking this as "done" since I don't expect
> the GNU/Linux version to change.

You are right. In fact, I do not expect any more that the
Linux version change, and I already fixed my script to
deal with this feature.
However, the advice given by an anonymous person
in the preceding email:

>Place some quotes around the argument, so that the variable will expand
>but the glob won't. Something like:
>MY_PATH=`dirname "$1"`
>will probably do what you expect.

worked perfectly    oo
Thanks to him (I cannot respond to him thus the 'sender email' is 
unreachable)
because 

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