Bug 674656 - file --help needs to be made more useful
Summary: file --help needs to be made more useful
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NEXTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: file
Version: 14
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jan Kaluža
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2011-02-02 20:23 UTC by Eric Blake
Modified: 2012-01-04 09:56 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-01-04 09:56:11 UTC
Type: ---


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Eric Blake 2011-02-02 20:23:45 UTC
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

Comment 1 Jan Kaluža 2011-02-03 09:20:51 UTC
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.

Comment 2 Jan Kaluža 2012-01-04 09:56:11 UTC
This is already fixed in Fedora 15 and Fedora 16.


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