Re: [gnu.org #1912852] Typo in the findutils manual

Hello Thérèse,

first of all, I have to admit that I don't have access to RT.
I wrote the sysadmins to clarify.

I hope you'll find this reply on the regular Findutils mailing list.

On 1/23/23 20:02, Therese Godefroy via RT wrote:
> Hello Bernhard,
> 
> Here is the sentence the OP is referring to:
> 
> "The xargs command will process all its input, building
> command lines and executing them, unless one of the
> commands exits with a status of 255 (this will cause xargs
> to issue an error message and stop) or it reads a line
> contains the end of file string specified with the ‘--eof’
> option."
> 
> Even with the typo corrected, I find this sentence a
> little difficult to read. It may help to emphasize its
> structure, for example by adding numbers:
> 
> ... unless (1) one of the
> commands exits with a status of 255 (this will cause xargs
> to issue an error message and stop) or (2) it reads a line
> containing the end of file string specified with the ‘--eof’
> option."
> 
> Best regards,
> Thérèse
> 
> 
> Le Lun 23 Jan 2023 04:07:04, [email protected] a écrit :
>> https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/manual/html_mono/find.html
>>
>> s/a line contains the/a line containing the/

I'm not a native speaker, but I find the existing wording quite okay.

What's definitely worth improving is the order of the stop conditions
in that sentence: obviously, xargs would stop when the EOF string from
a given --eof option is read ... before it can check if the launched
command existed with status 255.

   $ seq 252 258 | xargs/xargs -tn1 --eof=255 sh -c 'exit $1' sh
   sh -c 'exit $1' sh 252
   sh -c 'exit $1' sh 253
   sh -c 'exit $1' sh 254

   $ seq 252 258 | xargs/xargs -tn1 --eof=256 sh -c 'exit $1' sh
   sh -c 'exit $1' sh 252
   sh -c 'exit $1' sh 253
   sh -c 'exit $1' sh 254
   sh -c 'exit $1' sh 255
   xargs/xargs: sh: exited with status 255; aborting

What about the attached?

Have a nice day,
Berny

From 411717fc7addaef4dc1f923c38714eab4cf735fb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bernhard Voelker <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2023 08:26:33 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] doc: improve description bout when xargs stops processing

* doc/find.texi (Multiple Files): Clarify better that xargs will stop when
reading the EOF string specified with the --eof option, or when a
launched command exists with status 255.  Switch the two termination
conditions to reflect the behavior.

Fixes RT #1912852.
---
 doc/find.texi | 12 +++++++-----
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/find.texi b/doc/find.texi
index e2e746a6..f6c11f6a 100644
--- a/doc/find.texi
+++ b/doc/find.texi
@@ -2478,11 +2478,13 @@ However, if the command needs to have its standard input be a terminal
 substitution method or use either the @samp{--arg-file} option or the
 @samp{--open-tty} option of @code{xargs}.
 
-The @code{xargs} command will process all its input, building command
-lines and executing them, unless one of the commands exits with a
-status of 255 (this will cause xargs to issue an error message and
-stop) or it reads a line contains the end of file string specified
-with the @samp{--eof} option.
+The @code{xargs} command will usually process all its input, building command
+lines and executing them.
+The processing stops earlier and immediately if the tool reads a line containing
+the end of file string specified with the @samp{--eof} option,
+or if one of the launched commands exits with a status of 255.
+The latter will cause @code{xargs} to issue an error message and exit with
+status 124.
 
 @menu
 * Unsafe File Name Handling::
-- 
2.39.0