$ echo "-" > foo $ rpm -qlp foo rpm just sits there, apparently waiting for something to appear in stdin. $ echo "--foobar" > foo $ rpm -qlp foo Also seems to trigger waiting for something from stdin. If reading from stdin is indeed desired when "-" is read from a package file manifest, I think it would be good to have it documented in the rpm man page. On the other hand, triggering stdin read on other things that start with a hyphen, not the hyphen alone, like "--foo", sounds like a bug that should be fixed to me.
Yes "-" opens stdin when encountered in a manifest. Hint: Don't forget to add echo "/dev/random" > foo rpm -qlp foo to your test matrix.
BTW, make sure that cat(1) gets an error message too, the behavior in UNIX is quite pugly and confusing when, say, a new user types $ cat Not even the hint of "-" on the CLI and nothing whatsoever happens. I'd suggest adding an environment variable TELL_ME_WHAT_I_AM_DOING, with level of expertise as value, and then using isatty(3) to tell when to prompt and prod the new user into learning exactly what stdin is, and how to use correctly. For extra credit, make sure the display message is available in all locales and encodings.
Jeff, I don't know what kind of a Chewbacca defense mission you're on in this bug and elsewhere in Bugzilla today, about bugs that are not addressed to you, but I'll bite this much: cat's behavior with stdin and "-" is quite clearly defined, already pretty well in its manual page, and even better in the POSIX utilities spec. It also does not treat every string that starts with a hyphen to mean stdin, nor does anything else I was aware of before the finding that led to this bug report.
I'm pointing out other closely related flaws in need of fixing. Note that not one example either of us has given includes a package. Is it the "R* Package Manager" of not?
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A point on comment #3. Sure the bug are addressed elsewhere, to the RedHat (not R*) package manager, almost so it is what i have undestood from you word. Not problem at all. But there are someone that have other interest,and spend much of its time, to resolve issue as of this, as the time come. And, perhaps, the time may had come already: useless to put refs on this because none care.
Fixed upstream (much less typing involved than arguing about cat behavior), opening stdin from a manifest doesn't make any sense IMO either. Not imporant enough to separately track status for Fedora though, it'll come to Fedora through updates sooner or later.
rpm-4.7.1-1.fc11 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 11. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/rpm-4.7.1-1.fc11
rpm-4.7.1-1.fc11 has been pushed to the Fedora 11 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.