Re: xargs: doesn't fail on missing terminator (which may have severe consequences)

On Thu, Dec 19, 2024 at 12:21:08PM +1100, raf <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 14, 2024 at 07:55:33PM +0100, Christoph Anton Mitterer <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Hey.
> > 
> > On Fri, 2024-12-13 at 23:05 +0100, Bernhard Voelker wrote:
> > > I never saw a practical example why it would be dangerous.
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > > Second, my main point, is that I believe that there is confusion
> > > about what -0, --null stands for.
> > > The usage output clarifies:
> > > 
> > >    -0, --null                   items are separated by a null, not
> > > whitespace;
> > >                                   disables quote and backslash
> > > processing and
> > >                                   logical EOF processing
> > > 
> > > The crucial word is "separate" which means it is something in between
> > > 2 entries:
> > >     entry1  <separator> entry2
> > > It is and was never a "terminator", i.e., something acknowledging
> > > that the previous
> > > entry is committed.
> > >    entry1 <terminator>
> 
> That might be what the "usage output" says, but it is not what find(1)
> does. It is treating NUL as a terminator in the sense that the last
> byte output with -print0 is a NUL. But that's find, not xargs.
> 
> And my copy of the GNU xargs [(GNU findutils) 4.10.0] manual entry
> says otherwise:
> 
>    -0, --null
>      Input items are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespace...
> 
> So the "usage output" disagrees with the manual entry.
> It's probably the usage output that is wrong since the
> manual entries for find and xargs agree with each other.
> 
> cheers,
> raf

Sorry, I just saw that this has already been mentioned.