groups script output change gutsy -> hardy
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| coreutils (Ubuntu) |
Triaged
|
Low
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
Binary package hint: coreutils
The output format of the groups command (from coreutils-
Expected format (as seen on Ubuntu Hardy, Debian Etch, Centos 5 and probably others):
$ groups john
john : john adm dialout cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev lpadmin scanner admin fuse john-bu share
$ groups john root
john : john adm dialout cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev lpadmin scanner admin fuse john-bu share
root : root
Format seen on Hardy (amd64):
$ groups john
john adm lp dialout cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev scanner netdev lpadmin powerdev admin fuse
$ groups john root
john : john adm lp dialout cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev scanner netdev lpadmin powerdev admin fuse
root : root
Note that groups seems to mirror id -Gn exactly when given one argument but prepend "username : " when used with multiple arguments. This is inconsistent with itself and other groups versions.
Note also that "man groups" claims "Same as id -Gn" on all tested platforms which is wrong; in general groups doesn't use the same output format.
Possible fix attached.
| John Pybus (john-jpnp) wrote | #1 |
| Changed in coreutils: | |
| importance: | Undecided → Low |
| status: | New → Triaged |
| C de-Avillez (hggdh2) wrote | #2 |
This was an upstream change, documented in the "Found and fixed bug in groups(1). Want the diff?" email thread on the coreutils mailing list. The email describing the change is in http://
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Those changes to groups.sh change its behavior to make it more
compatible with FreeBSD and Solaris. The old behavior was:
$ groups root
root : root
and the new behavior is:
$ groups root
root
I think this change is a good one (as compatibility is good), but it
should be documented.
While we're in the neighborhood:
* "groups" should print a diagnostic if there's a write error, rather
than merely exiting with status 1.
* groups should handle options like "--vers" and "--" compatibly
with everyone else.
* "id" should be invoked with "--" to protect user names beginning
with "-".
Here's a proposed patch. Normally I'd just install this, but you're
about to release a new version so I am holding off.
2006-09-26 Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
* NEWS: "groups user" no longer outputs "user :"; you need at least
two users. "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
* doc/coreutils.texi (groups invocation): "groups" no longer prefixes
the output with "user :" unless more than one user is specified.
* src/groups.sh: Implement the option-processing change.
Handle user and group names with special characters more robustly.
Report write errors instead of exiting silently with status 1.
(...)
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