From 012222e38cd0b48a3dabd10c9a3cf6b2c4c5befc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Herbert Xu Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:16:26 +0800 Subject: [MAN] Change characters for printf precision to bytes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Sun, Mar 09, 2014 at 11:11:43AM +0000, Jeroen van Dijke wrote: > > There seems to be a bug in the dash man page, at least in 0.5.7. It reads: > > Precision: > An optional period, `.', followed by an optional digit string giving a precision which specifies the number of digits to appear after the decimal point, for e and f formats, or the maximum number of *characters* to be printed from a string (b and s for- > mats); if the digit string is missing, the precision is treated as zero; > > dash behaves cuts to the number of bytes > > $ length=10; printf "%.${length}s\n" "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" > eeeeeeeeee > $ length=10; printf "%.${length}s\n" "ëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëë” > ëëëëë > > > The POSIX specification (2008) says: > > precision Gives the minimum number of digits to appear for the d, o, i, u, x, or X conversion specifiers (the field is padded with leading zeros), the number of digits to appear after the radix character for the e and f conversion specifiers, the maximum number of significant digits for the g conversion specifier; or the maximum number of *bytes* to be written from a string in the s conversion specifier. The precision shall take the form of a ( '.' ) followed by a decimal digit string; a null digit string is treated as zero. > > So it seems to me that “characters” should be changed to “bytes”. Indeed and this patch makes that change. Signed-off-by: Herbert Xu --- ChangeLog | 1 + src/dash.1 | 4 ++-- 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog index 7b67c0c..6f27fd7 100644 --- a/ChangeLog +++ b/ChangeLog @@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ * Small optimisation of command -pv change. * Set command -p path to /usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin. + * Change "characters" for printf precision to "bytes". 2014-09-26 Harald van Dijk diff --git a/src/dash.1 b/src/dash.1 index 6241a61..6ceb16a 100644 --- a/src/dash.1 +++ b/src/dash.1 @@ -1670,7 +1670,7 @@ for .Cm e and .Cm f -formats, or the maximum number of characters to be printed +formats, or the maximum number of bytes to be printed from a string .Sm off .Pf ( Cm b @@ -1758,7 +1758,7 @@ is printed. .It Cm s Characters from the string .Ar argument -are printed until the end is reached or until the number of characters +are printed until the end is reached or until the number of bytes indicated by the precision specification is reached; if the precision is omitted, all characters in the string are printed. .It Cm \&% -- cgit 1.4.1