| Summary: | file --help needs to be made more useful | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Fedora] Fedora | Reporter: | Eric Blake <eblake> |
| Component: | file | Assignee: | Jan Kaluža <jkaluza> |
| Status: | CLOSED NEXTRELEASE | QA Contact: | Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa> |
| Severity: | unspecified | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | unspecified | ||
| Version: | 14 | CC: | jkaluza |
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | Unspecified | ||
| OS: | Unspecified | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2012-01-04 09:56:11 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
I think Christos (File developer) already answered your question on http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.coreutils.bugs/21859. Once he will push the updates to file repository, I'll backport it. This is already fixed in Fedora 15 and Fedora 16. |
Description of problem: These days, it is common for programs to list some bug reporting contact information in --help output (GNU Coding Standards require it, although I have no idea if file is a GNU program). This is particularly important for file(1), since google searches for strings like 'file bug report address' are practically worthless (that is, I could not quickly determine where the upstream sources for file are maintained after several google attempts, so I'm filing the bug here instead, in the hopes that you'll forward it upstream as well as patching it in Fedora). Also, file --help goes to stderr, even though --help traditionally should go to stdout. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): file-5.04-15.fc14.x86_64 How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: 1. file --help 2>&1 | grep -i bug 2. file --help >/dev/null Actual results: 1. no mention of any bug reporting website or email: conjunction with -m to debug a new magic file -d, --debug print debugging messages 2. entire help output leaked through to stderr Expected results: Contrast steps 1 and 2 with something familiar and useful: $ ls --help >/dev/null $ ls --help | grep -i bug Report ls bugs to bug-coreutils Additional info: This is a result of a (mis-guided) upstream coreutils bug report: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.coreutils.bugs/21859