[no subject]

Looking at source code for tail.c from RHEL ES3 coreutils-4.5.3 there is
this comment: (where P is the command line parameters being evaluated,
and POSIX textual version 1003.1-2001 is represented as the integer
200112):

  /* If P starts with `+' and the POSIX version predates 1003.1-2001,
     or if P starts with `-N' (where N is a digit), or `-l', then it
     is obsolescent.  Return zero otherwise.  */

So, by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=200112 one should expect 'tail -1
somefile' to barf.  It doesn't.  However, looking further at tail.c
shows that parse_obsolescent_option() continues after determining
obsolescence and correctly parses +N, -N despite knowing they are
obsolete.  (backwards compatibility == good)

However, if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set in the environment, then tail will
NOT force the backwards compatibility and the user will get an error
like this:

   tail: `-1' option is obsolete; use `-n 1'
   
-Jim P.




</pre>
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