Motion for removal of xargs(1) from base system
Jackie 'business-first' Cook
things of the past just have to go. Recently I got sick and tired with one of
those things. The command is, as you could have guessed from the subject,
xags(1) aka /usr/bin/xargs. It is buggy and cluttered piece of code. Faulty and
hard to use command. It's idiosyncratic syntax makes people dizzy everytime they
use/or just try to use it.
Moreover short research I've conducted showed, that excessive use of xargs(1)
can cause nausea, vomiting and migrene. The very presence of xargs(1) in the
system, caused in some cases severe brain damage. Therefore I propose removal of
xargs(1) from base system and moving it to ports tree. The new port in
sysutils/xargs should be marked as BROKEN just after creation - that's obvious.
Short procedure for removing xargs(1) from your life:
Version #1 - for experienced sysadmins (local solution):
rm -f /usr/bin/xargs (the -f is for those lucky ones who have ditched
xargs(1) long ago, but just want to make sure
it will vanish for good)
Version #2 - for enterprise (ie. business) users, who are searching for their
way in life (overwhelming majority) (local solution, still):
find / -print0 | grep -v xargs | xargs -0 rm -f {} \;
(the -v switch for grep adds some *verbosity*
during operation)
Version #3 - for commiters only (global solution, all FreeBSD users are urged to
cvs up/cvsup right after the commit, but one of presented local
solutions is still necessary to get rid of the venerous xargs(1)
from your system):
freefall% rm -rf $CVSROOT/src/usr.bin/xargs
(to trash it altogether with version history,
and make sure it will never come back)
As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose
implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating
system.
Yours sincerly, Jackie 'business-first' Cook.
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Alfred Perlstein
>
> As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose
> implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating
> system.
Nice proposal, where's the diff?
> Yours sincerly, Jackie 'business-first' Cook.
>
--
-Alfred 'patches-first' Perlstein
Brandon D. Valentine
>* Jackie 'business-first' Cook <jac...@businessman.pl> [011210 16:19] wrote:
>>
>> As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose
>> implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating
>> system.
>
>Nice proposal, where's the diff?
I'd like to preempt the ensuing bikeshed by voting for green.
>> Yours sincerly, Jackie 'business-first' Cook.
You don't by chance sell used cars, do you?
Brandon D. Valentine
--
"Iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari."
- G. Valerius Catullus, Carmina, XLVI
Julian Elischer
it seems to work fine, and it's pretty much an expected
base utility. Removing it is going to cause quite a bit of confusion.
that wouldn't do what I want to do with xargs.
It may not be wonderful but it's expected..
If you wna to get ugliness out of the system, how about starting with
Perl :-)
Emiel Kollof
> ummm, what are my scripts that use it going to use instead?
> it seems to work fine, and it's pretty much an expected
> base utility. Removing it is going to cause quite a bit of confusion.
I have to concurr here. Who knows what's going to break when this is
removed. It seems to have an established place on every UNIX workalike
out there. I say keep it. If you don't like it, then don't use it.
Cheers,
Emiel (who hopes for not another flamewar. One at a time is enough :)
--
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
-- Johnny Hart
Gordon Tetlow
On Mon, 10 Dec 2001, Jackie 'business-first' Cook wrote:
> There are days when people get tired with the lagacy code in the
> system - when things of the past just have to go. Recently I got sick
> and tired with one of those things. The command is, as you could have
> guessed from the subject, xags(1) aka /usr/bin/xargs. It is buggy and
> cluttered piece of code. Faulty and hard to use command. It's
> idiosyncratic syntax makes people dizzy everytime they use/or just try
> to use it.
Well, in that case, find(1) needs to be pitched as well for it's
"idiosyncratic syntax" as well. Besides xargs is part of the POSIX 1003.2
Standard. Since we are trying to be POSIX compliant, xargs should stay. If
you think the code is ugly, please feel free to fix it. Patches are most
welcome.
-gordon
Wilko Bulte
> * Julian Elischer (jul...@elischer.org) wrote:
> > ummm, what are my scripts that use it going to use instead?
> > it seems to work fine, and it's pretty much an expected
> > base utility. Removing it is going to cause quite a bit of confusion.
>
> I have to concurr here. Who knows what's going to break when this is
> removed. It seems to have an established place on every UNIX workalike
> out there. I say keep it. If you don't like it, then don't use it.
>
> Cheers,
> Emiel (who hopes for not another flamewar. One at a time is enough :)
Thanks to progress we can now have multi-threaded flamewars ;)
Wilko
[likes to keep xargs btw]
--
| / o / /_ _ email: wi...@FreeBSD.org
|/|/ / / /( (_) Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands
John Baldwin
On 10-Dec-01 Jackie 'business-first' Cook wrote:
> There are days when people get tired with the lagacy code in the system -
> when
> things of the past just have to go. Recently I got sick and tired with one of
> those things. The command is, as you could have guessed from the subject,
> xags(1) aka /usr/bin/xargs. It is buggy and cluttered piece of code. Faulty
> and
> hard to use command. It's idiosyncratic syntax makes people dizzy everytime
> they
> use/or just try to use it.
Buggy? I haven't had problems with xargs(1). I think a more useful use of
your time would be to actually describe the problems you have so they can be
addressed. What Unix command doesn't have idiosyncratic syntax anyways?
--
John Baldwin <j...@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/
Brian F. Feldman
> On Mon, 10 Dec 2001, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
>
> >* Jackie 'business-first' Cook <jac...@businessman.pl> [011210 16:19] wrote:
> >>
> >> implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating
> >> system.
> >
>
> I'd like to preempt the ensuing bikeshed by voting for green.
I'd like to accept your nomination. People, I know you won't regret
choosing the right person for the job!
--
Brian Fundakowski Feldman \ FreeBSD: The Power to Serve! /
gr...@FreeBSD.org `------------------------------'
Jordan Hubbard
like it was just yesterday!
- Jordan
Andrea Campi
chair and keyboard) exploit:
> Version #2 - for enterprise (ie. business) users, who are searching for their
> way in life (overwhelming majority) (local solution, still):
>
> find / -print0 | grep -v xargs | xargs -0 rm -f {} \;
> (the -v switch for grep adds some *verbosity*
> during operation)
This doesn't quite do what he says; let's hope nobody tried to run it AND let
it run to its unpleasant end: passing the paths to all the files on your system
down the pipes on a single line, for rm to delete... Too bad the machine would
slow down to a crawl...
nice try anyway ;-)
Andrea
[luckily the rm wouldn't work for at least a reason which is left as an exercise
to the reader]
--
Intel: where Quality is job number 0.9998782345!
John Baldwin
On 10-Dec-01 Brian F. Feldman wrote:
> "Brandon D. Valentine" <ban...@looksharp.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, 10 Dec 2001, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
>>
>> >* Jackie 'business-first' Cook <jac...@businessman.pl> [011210 16:19]
>> >wrote:
>> >>
>> >> As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose
>> >> implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the
>> >> operating
>> >> system.
>> >
>> >Nice proposal, where's the diff?
>>
>> I'd like to preempt the ensuing bikeshed by voting for green.
>
> I'd like to accept your nomination. People, I know you won't regret
> choosing the right person for the job!
So I can cut you up into little places, grind those up in a blender, mix with
the appropriate substances and use the result to paint bikesheds? Hmmm..
--
John Baldwin <j...@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majo...@FreeBSD.org
Emiel Kollof
> My, is it April 1st already? How quickly time flies! December feels
> like it was just yesterday!
You can say that again... I missed my birthday and the new-years party
too. I'm such a geek...
:-)
Cheers,
Emiel
--
No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
Alfred Perlstein
> "Brandon D. Valentine" <ban...@looksharp.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, 10 Dec 2001, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
> >
> > >* Jackie 'business-first' Cook <jac...@businessman.pl> [011210 16:19] wrote:
> > >>
> > >> As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose
> > >> implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating
> > >> system.
> > >
> > >Nice proposal, where's the diff?
> >
> > I'd like to preempt the ensuing bikeshed by voting for green.
>
> I'd like to accept your nomination. People, I know you won't regret
> choosing the right person for the job!
I figured you'd be ok with removing xargs.... pfft.
--
-Alfred Perlstein [alf...@freebsd.org]
'Instead of asking why a piece of software is using "1970s technology,"
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.'
http://www.morons.org/rants/gpl-harmful.php3
Terry Lambert
[ ... plot to murder innocent xargs command ... ]
Please don't. I use this on a daily basis. It is a much faster
way to use find than "exec", since it doesn't require a billion
instances of "grep".
> As a replacement for the 'functionality' present in xargs(1), I propose
> implementing arbitrary length argument list passing right in the operating
> system.
I would like to see how you propose to do this without making
the kernel stack arbirarily large... and hacking up every shell,
perl, mush, etc..
-- Terry
Ruslan Ermilov
> There are days when people get tired with the lagacy code in the system - when
> things of the past just have to go. Recently I got sick and tired with one of
> those things. The command is, as you could have guessed from the subject,
> xags(1) aka /usr/bin/xargs. It is buggy and cluttered piece of code. Faulty and
> hard to use command. It's idiosyncratic syntax makes people dizzy everytime they
> use/or just try to use it.
>
--
Ruslan Ermilov Oracle Developer/DBA,
r...@sunbay.com Sunbay Software AG,
r...@FreeBSD.org FreeBSD committer,
+380.652.512.251 Simferopol, Ukraine
http://www.FreeBSD.org The Power To Serve
http://www.oracle.com Enabling The Information Age