Home • About Us • A-Z Index • Search * Contact Us • Register • Login • Press • Shop

The Open Brand -- Problem Reporting and Interpretations System

Problem Report 0638 Details

Help Show help | Quick Search | Submit a Test Suite Support Request | Click here to view your privileges

This page provides all information on Problem Report 0638.

Report 0638 Actions

    Problem Report Number 0638
    Submitter's Classification Specification problem
    State Resolved
    Resolution Rejected (REJ)
    Problem Resolution ID REJ.X.0242
    Raised 1970-01-01 08:00
    Updated 2003-03-13 08:00
    Published null
    Product Standard Commands and Utilities V2 (UNIX 95)
    Certification Program The Open Brand certification program
    Test Suite VSC version 4.1.4
    Test Identification POSIX.upe/ex 484
    Problem Summary PG4C.00034 This is a duplicate of a previous request. Use TIN4C.00017 instead.
    Problem Text
    The test may fail on implementations that adhere to historic practice.
    Although POSIX.2 interpretation #51 reaffirms the behavior, the
    POSIX.2b draft removes the requirement.

    The test in question verifies the following assertion:

    When beautify or bf is set and a command is given to read a file
    into the buffer and the file contains non-printable characters
    other than tab, newline or form-feed, then those non-printable
    characters are discarded from the text read in.

    This assertion is based on the following language in XCU4 Issue 2,
    p. 318:

    beautify, bf

    [Default off]

    If beautify is set, all non-printable characters, other than tab,
    newline and form-feed charaters, will be discarded from text read
    in from files.

    This language is taken directly from POSIX.2. However, it does not
    describe the historical behavior of ex.

    IEEE interpretation request pasc-1003.2-051 deals with this issue.
    This interpretation request and its response are quoted here in
    their entirety:

    ---------------------start of IEEE pasc-1003.2-051-----------------------
    _________________________________________________________________________

    PASC Interpretation reference
    1003.2-92 #51

    _________________________________________________________________________


    Interpretation Number: XXXX
    Topic: beautify, bf
    Relevant Sections: 5.10.7.5.4


    Interpretation Request:
    -----------------------


    11 March 1994

    Reference: Page 536, Section 5.10.7.5.4, "beautify, bf"

    Was it the intent of the POSIX 1003.2 standard to change historic
    practice by requiring that beautify affect text read in from files?

    Historic practice is as follows, if the beautify option is set.

    In ex mode, keys which were not already specially handled, that were
    less than an ASCII space or were the del (0177) key, and were neither
    a tab nor a form-feed, and were read in from a COMMAND file, were
    discarded. When the first ^H was discarded a message was written to
    the terminal. Quoting (a \) would keep the keys from being discarded.

    In vi mode, keys which were not already specially handled, that were
    less than an ASCII space or were the del (0177) key, and were neither
    a tab nor a form-feed, and were entered in input mode (either to the
    edit buffer or to the colon command line), were discarded. Quoting
    (a ^V) would keep the keys from being discarded.

    I would suggest wording it such that implementations are permitted to
    interpret different sets of special keys, and that any keys that are
    not quoted, which are not specially interpreted, and for which iscntrl()
    returns true, are discarded.

    (Keith Bostic bostic@cs.berkeley.edu)


    IEEE Interpretation for 1003.2-1992
    -----------------------------------

    The standard states the behavior required and
    conforming implementations shall conform to this.

    Concerns about the wording of this part of the standard have
    been forwarded to the sponsor.


    Rationale for Interpretation:
    -----------------------------
    None
    --
    ----------------------end of IEEE pasc-1003.2-051------------------------


    The test suite itself contains a comment written to the journal to the
    effect that this specification is expected to change. (See the journal
    output shown above for all three assertions.) In the most recent draft
    (Draft 11) of POSIX.2b, the beautify option has been dropped from the
    ex specification. In view of this, the assertion is clearly a grey
    area.

    Test Output
    -----------------start of test output------------------

    ************************************************************************
    /tset/POSIX.upe/ex/ex_08.ex 1 Failed


    Test Information:
    Assertion #484 (C): beautify option discards unprintable characters
    Note: The behavior associated with this assertion is expected
    to change in a future revision of POSIX.2.
    diff of "ex_data_1" and "ex_exp_1":
    2c2
    < def\007\015\010ghi
    ---
    > defghi
    Command failed: 'jrnl_file_diff ex_data_1 ex_exp_1'
    ************************************************************************

    ------------------end of test output-------------------

    Note: this output was from the vrpt report.

    Review Information

    Review Type TSMA Review
    Start Date null
    Completed null
    Status Complete
    Review Recommendation No Resolution Given
    Review Response
    We recommend this request be refused.

    This is a duplicate of TIN4C.00017.

    Review Type SA Review
    Start Date null
    Completed null
    Status Complete
    Review Resolution Rejected (REJ)
    Review Conclusion
    This request is refused.

    Problem Reporting System Options:

     

    Back   

Contact the Certification Authority