less -f

[Joshua Lokken]

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 20:09:27 -0500, Chuck Swiger <cswiger at mac.com> wrote:
> Joshua Lokken wrote:
> [ ... ]
> > So, I did man less(1), and found this:
> >
> > -f or --force
> >    Forces non-regular files to be opened.  (A non-regular file is a
> >    directory or a device special file.)  Also suppresses the  warn-
> >    ing message when a binary file is opened.  By default, less will
> >    refuse to open non-regular files.
> >
> > However,:
> [ ... ]
> >less -f ~netmin/mydir
> > /home/netmin/mydir is a directory
> >
> > Can someone explain this behavior to me?  I admit that I may
> > not understand the -f flag wholly, however, this seems in direct
> > contradiction with the man page.
> 
> You're right, the manpage says and what the program actually does contradict
> each other.  Consider the following change to /usr/src/contrib/less:
> 
> --- filename.c~ Thu Jun 29 21:03:08 2000
> +++ filename.c  Wed Dec 29 20:04:06 2004
> @@ -954,10 +954,14 @@
>         {
>                 static char is_dir[] = " is a directory";
> 
> -               m = (char *) ecalloc(strlen(filename) + sizeof(is_dir),
> -                       sizeof(char));
> -               strcpy(m, filename);
> -               strcat(m, is_dir);
> +                if (force_open) {
> +                    m = NULL;
> +                } else {
> +                    m = (char *) ecalloc(strlen(filename) + sizeof(is_dir),
> +                                         sizeof(char));
> +                    strcpy(m, filename);
> +                    strcat(m, is_dir);
> +                }
>         } else
>         {
> 

Is this something that warrants a send-pr?  I've never used the 
tool, and don't want to generate needless problem reports.
What's the best way to handle it?  Thanks for any advice.

-- 
Joshua Lokken
Open Source Advocate