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GNU CoreUtils Gotchas

posted by martyb on Tuesday December 01 2015, @07:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the features-are-beneficial-bugs dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

We make very careful considerations about the interface and operation of the GNU coreutils, but unfortunately due to backwards compatibility reasons, some behaviours or defaults of these utilities can be confusing.

This information will continue to be updated and overlaps somewhat with the coreutils FAQ, with this list focusing on less frequent potential issues.

Good tips and reminders for those who don't work mostly with a CLI (Command Line Interface).

[What has been YOUR biggest CLI gotcha? -Ed.]

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by termigator on Tuesday December 01 2015, @08:47PM

    by termigator (4271) on Tuesday December 01 2015, @08:47PM (#270348)

    > What has been YOUR biggest CLI gotcha?

    Having to work with Windows DOS console and .bat scripts.

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  • (Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Tuesday December 01 2015, @10:37PM

    by el_oscuro (1711) on Tuesday December 01 2015, @10:37PM (#270378)

    While The Windows command prompt is a kludge, it is surprisingly powerful and has an excellent man page with lots of great examples on how to use it effectively.
    I know it is very obscure, but the command to access the man page is "help". Who would ever think of that?

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by termigator on Wednesday December 02 2015, @12:14AM

      by termigator (4271) on Wednesday December 02 2015, @12:14AM (#270416)

      But the parsing rules regarding quoted content and variable expansion is insane.

      I have the unfortunate task of maintaining DOS script wrappers for a project, and trying to do things I can do easily in *nix-based shells is an experience I would like to forget.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @01:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @01:16PM (#270614)
        Where possible I switch to perl or python on windows. And sometime vbscript is better that bat. Supposedly powershell is not too bad.