Now where should I post. :>

[Matthew Seaman]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 01:29:34AM +0000, thib wrote:

> I just made a patch for cat(1) wich simply aborts if you try to cat a directory.
> Now that I have the patch file and everything I stumbled on where I should post it and ask for it to be reviewd and perhaps commited. 
> I thougt of -hackers ( Unlikely but I have seen a few posts there but since cat is a contributed software I don't know ) and then I thougt of -ports but since this not a port of cat(1) so I don't really think so. Then I thougt I should report this to the cat (gnu) project it self but since I'm using the FreeBSD API for this I did not think so.
> And then I thougt about obrien@ since this:
> "# $FreeBSD: src/bin/cat/Makefile,v 1.7 2001/12/04 01:57:37 obrien Exp $" is in the Makefile for cat(1) but I really don't want to bother him if I'm wrong.

Submit a PR with your patch -- make it a 'change-request'.  See
send-pr(1) for instructions.

However, I wouldn't hold out too much hope that your proposal will be
adopted.  cat(1) has been able to read directories since the epoch and
suddenly changing that behaviour would probably result in howls of
outrage from various places that depend on being able to do that.

What you should do is add a command line option which switches on the
behaviour you want -- say '-D' -- so that the default remains as it
always was, but so that people wanting the new behaviour can alias cat
as 'cat -D'

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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