bin/144411: [patch] mtree(8) doesn't reject non-regular files for -X

[Garrett Cooper]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Bruce Evans <brde at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010, Bruce Evans wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>    I'm not 100% satisfied with this patch now. Looking back it fails
>>> the following case:
>>>
>>>     -P    Do not follow symbolic links in the file hierarchy, instead
>>> con-
>>>           sider the symbolic link itself in any comparisons.  This is the
>>>           default.
>>
>> -P should have the same semantics and description in all utilities.  The
>> description should not have grammar errors like the above (comma splice).
>> ...
>> I now see that the grammar error is from the original version of mtree(1),
>> and is probably one of the things you don't like.  mtree also has -L, but
>> not -R or -P or -h.  It is not clear how any utility that traverses trees
>> can work without a full complement of -[HLPR] or how any utility that
>> ...
>
> Looking at the actual patch, I now see that it is about a completely
> different problem.  You would only need to understand the amount of
> brokenness of -P to see if you need to use lstat().  I think -P is so
> broken that mtree on symlinks doesn't work at all and not using lstat()
> would be safest.

Hmmm... so I take it that this is actually the first step in many to
fixing this underlying problem? I suppose I should be opening bugs for
all of the itemized issues that you see in mtree(8) so someone can
submit patches to fix the utility?

> The patch has some style bugs.

Please expound on this -- I want to improve my style (without having
to rewrite the entire program of course) -- so that it conforms more
to the projects overall style rules; of course there are some cases
where I can't readily do that (like pkg_install -- ugh), but I'll do
my best to make sure that the rules are withheld.

Thanks :),
-Garrett