Description of problem: tail(1) fails to parse plus-sign argument; reports error Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 5.93 How reproducible: /bin/echo "bad\ngood" | tail +2 should yield "good," instead gives an error message about not finding a file called "+2". Actual results: tail: cannot open `+2' for reading: No such file or directory Expected results: good Additional info: It's possible this originates in an argument-parsing library. This is an urgent bug on submitter's system, since it breaks hundreds of local shell scripts.
Correction to procedure to reproduce bug: /bin/echo -e "bad\ngood" | tail +2 --
The correct syntax for this is "tail -n +2 f". You can get the old syntax (which does not conform to the current POSIX spec) back like this: export _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 See the info page aobut this: info coreutils "Standards Conformance"