gnu hello bug report

[Nicolas Fischer]

Hi guys,

love your proggy, but found a bug

here's the info you requested to be provided with any bug-report (:http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/hello.html#Reporting-bugs)

-- version of hello

zapp ~ # hello --version
hello (GNU hello) 2.5

-- hardware and operating system names and version

zapp ~ # uname -a
Linux zapp 2.6.31-gentoo-r10 #2 SMP PREEMPT Tue Apr 6 19:36:30 CEST 2010 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo CPU L2500 @ 1.83GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

-- expected behaviour:

zapp ~ # hello -n -g moin
+------+
| moin |
+------+

-- description of problem or any erroneaous output:

zapp ~ # hello -n -g moin
moin

-- option to configure

./configure --prefix=/usr --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var/lib --enable-nls

-- anything else I think might be helpfull

For some reason, the ebuild "app-misc/hello" is masked in the gentoo packaging system. maybe this hints to some bug or incompatibility in general.

We think we already have an idea what is happening: obviously the command-line parser implemented in hello only honors the last option. we have tried many different combinations of options, while our assumption held true.

---

greez, moin, and thanks for the beautiful software, looking forward to a quick fix, or, if that is not possible, at least some kind of a workaround,

.nick

[Karl Berry]

Hi Nicolas,

    -- expected behaviour:
    zapp ~ # hello -n -g moin
    +------+
    | moin |
    +------+

I understand why you would expect this, but it's behaving as
documented.  From the "Invoking" node of the manual:

  `-n'
       Output `Hello, world!', but possibly including box-drawing...

Note, it is specifically outputting the fixed string "Hello, world!",
and does not say "output the string specified by other options with
box-drawing characters".


    obviously the command-line parser implemented in hello only honors
    the last option.

Indeed.  As intended and documented:

  If more than one of the greeting options (`-g', `-n', `-t', and
  their long-named equivalents) is specified, whichever comes last takes
  precedence.


    to a quick fix, or, if that is not possible, at least some kind of a
    workaround,

That would imply dynamically translating (or rather "box-ifying") an
arbitrary string.  That's not going to happen.  The special strings for
-n are created by human translators and included in the program at build
time, not created on the fly by software.

     For some reason, the ebuild "app-misc/hello" is masked in the
     gentoo packaging system. maybe this hints to some bug or
     incompatibility in general.
 
I know nothing about Gentoo's practices.

Greetings,
karl