Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:42:02 -0500 From: Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com> To: utisoft@gmail.com Cc: David Schultz <das@freebsd.org>, Maxim Konovalov <maxim.konovalov@gmail.com>, Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de>, FreeBSD Standards <freebsd-standards@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: dd dies on SIGUSR1 Message-ID: <AANLkTimya2k%2B9mNzFnVCL1jjqj%2BQ9xDBYO2VO5d-AQyY@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikhgk3YRuFoGjBf725b%2B421qDXCWBMSn3PrA5t5@mail.gmail.com> References: <AANLkTikoZNpmM83%2BU-0AWhO43K67gKNq1dZ4UnL2UAPo@mail.gmail.com> <201103221457.p2MEvJub035858@lurza.secnetix.de> <AANLkTinzhKi-sfW-kz9W6EkA0WtB5-nO0gpyCLRyyHCn@mail.gmail.com> <20110322181604.GA47588@zim.MIT.EDU> <AANLkTi=PE6beTB1wmC8v41PqAWWSqq%2B6z-Be44uePYtZ@mail.gmail.com> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1103222136510.17256@qvfongpu.qngnvk.ybpny> <AANLkTikhgk3YRuFoGjBf725b%2B421qDXCWBMSn3PrA5t5@mail.gmail.com>
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I fear this may be getting into bikeshed territory. However I'll put out my two cents. >> Assuming -USR[N] will get you -INFO does not mean the utilities you were >> using were incorrect and needed to be changed. It means you need to change >> your aspect of the portability of your syntax. Some systems go to far to >> keep the end-user from shooting them self in the foot and this would be one >> of those cases. In my opinion mistakes should cause *no* action to be taken. This is not analogous to alias rm="rm -i" but of rm -Q doing nothing. > We are talking about a design decision taken decades ago, which quite > possibly was a mistake. Historical reasons are not be discounted, but in this case because the behavior is already non-portable, and already not be relied upon, so there is no reason that changing the default is harmful. > Again, how many people rely on USR1 to terminate a process? Hopefully none. Even if there are people who do rely on such behavior that reliance could be said to be a mistake or otherwise broken. >> If a program receives a signal it should do *something* if it has nothing to >> do then it should *terminate*. The author of said software here gave it >> nothing else to do, therefore it terminates... If it has nothing to do, it should do *nothing* instead of something unexpected. > Because of a poor design decision-- that we easily fix with no breakage. +1 -- Eitan Adler
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