Re: bin/60499: printf(1) doesn't support positional arguments (%n$...)

The following reply was made to PR bin/60499; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Robert Elz <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/60499: printf(1) doesn't support positional arguments (%n$...)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2026 20:27:50 +0700

     Date:        Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:50:02 +0000 (UTC)
     From:        "Valery Ushakov via gnats" <[email protected]>
     Message-ID:  <[email protected]>
 
   |  I'm confused...  "It does" and "implemented nothing" is kinda
   |  contradictory.
 
 "It does" was agreeing with you about what POSIX requires.
 "implemented nothing" was my reaction to what POSIX requires.
 
   | But I often find implicit loop in printf massively convenient :)
 
 It is when not using positional args, and nothing is going to remove
 that (I have even considered making it more flexible).   But with
 positional args the possibilities just get to be too mind boggling,
 in the general case (the one you showed was trivial, easy to know
 what was expected, but that's not always true, esp when they are
 being used for the purpose for which they were designed.)
 
   |  I don't think our shell is easily impressed, it's seen worse, and
   |  no-one else sees those snippets of shell code that I type into my
   |  emacs buffer only to immediately C-u M-| sh <RET> it.
 
 You mean you weren't aware of sh's phone home policy, where sh looks
 at all the code it sees, and if it sees anything particularly sexy,
 sends me a copy ???
 
 kre
 
 ps: just for the humour challenged, that last para wasn't serious, of course.