find -lname and -ilname implemented

Warner Losh imp at bsdimp.com
Sat Feb 23 19:07:17 UTC 2008


From: Mike Meyer <mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df at mired.org>
Subject: Re: find -lname and -ilname implemented
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:19:37 -0500

> On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 11:00:47 -0700 (MST) "M. Warner Losh" <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
> 
> > In message: <20080223123556.3eee709d at bhuda.mired.org>
> >             Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> writes:
> > : On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:03:08 -0700 (MST) "M. Warner Losh" <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
> > : 
> > : > Sorry to be lame and follow up to my original email, but Ruslan was
> > : > way too quick to give me feedback :-)
> > : > 
> > : > I also did a few more of the really easy ones, and added a list of
> > : > ones that we haven't implemented yet.
> > : > 
> > : > Comments?
> > : 
> > : How about a question: why are you turning the FreeBSD find into the
> > : GNU find? The changes in the first patch looked like they added real
> > : functionality that wasn't available in other tools. These seem to be
> > : gratuitous changes to make things compatible with GNU.
> > 
> > The changes aren't gratuitous.  They are well thought out to ensure
> > maximum compatibility.
> 
> That they add no new functionality, but only exist to make things
> compatible with GNU are what make them gratuitous to me.

It adds functionality.  That doesn't make it gratuitous.  One might
just as well call 'POSIX' compatibility gratuitous.  Like it or not,
the GNU utilities represent a de-facto standard that we must conform
to.

> > It is yet another barrier to entry for people converting from Linux to
> > FreeBSD.  There's lots of useful scripts that have been written for
> > the embedded world that, sadly, assume more functionality in our tools
> > than are present.  They don't always do nice autoconf things to find
> > the right tool to use.  The trivial differences between gnu find and
> > our find serve no real purpose.
> 
> The problem with this argument is that there are no limits on it,
> other than the developers definition of "trivial". OS X has already
> carried this argument to the point that they've replaced /bin/sh with
> bash.

Don't be rediculous.  I added 1k of extra space to an existing
utility.  That was part of the calculous in my making the changes I
did.

Or course, we may need to adopt features from bash into our /bin/sh as
time marches forward.

This is no different from what the project has always done.  There's
nothing new that I've done.  Reviewing all the utilities one will find
where people have added features or enhanced compatibility with other
gnu tools.  Don't make me quote all the cvs log entries to prove this
point (but I will if you don't believe me).

> While I understand that it's easier to fix the BSD find, have you
> tried filing bug reports with patches for the tools that assume GNU
> find? That would help people outside the BSD community as well.

Like spitting in the ocean.  There's a bunch of different such tools
and it is a better investment of my time and everybody else's time to
make FreeBSD's find work better in these environments rather than
trying to fix all the places that use it.

I'm also not sure that the maintainers would buy the argument you are
making here.  People outside the BSD community generally use gnu
tools.  The percentage of people using other Unicies is small, and
typically they don't have source to rebuild (Solaris/OpenSolaris is
one exception I can think of).

In short, I'm continuig the long tradition that we've done as FreeBSD
and that BSD and other Unix vendors did before us: compatibility with
other implementations.

Warner



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