Bug 36337 – sys-apps/coreutils-5.0.91-r2 has broken 'seq'

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Robin Johnson 2003-12-22 18:25:10 UTC]

seq with reverse sequences is broken in coreutils-5.0.91-r2.

output from "seq 5 1"
coreutils-5.0-r3:
5
4
3
2
1

coreutils-5.0.91-r2:
(nothing)

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:



Expected Results:  
should produce correct reverse sequences

Portage 2.0.49-r18 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.3_pre20031212-r0, 
2.4.22-pre10-ac1)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.22-pre10-ac1 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.12
ccache version 2.3 [enabled]
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -mcpu=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/s
hare/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/
dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/c
onfig/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/bind /var/qmail/alias /var/qmail/control /var
/vpopmail/domains /var/vpopmail/etc"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -mcpu=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/gentoo-distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs buildpkg ccache cvs digest nostrip sandbox xmanifestsign"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.ccccom.com http://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo 
ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/linux/gentoo http://gentoo.noved.org/ http://csociety-
ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/gentoo/"
MAKEOPTS="-j1"
PKGDIR="/usr/gentoo-packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/gentoo-cvs/gentoo-x86"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="3dnow X aalib acl acpi alsa amd apache2 apm arts avi berkdb bots cdr 
clearpasswd crypt cups curl directfb dvd encode esd ethereal expat fbcon 
firebird flash foomaticdb freetds gd gdbm ggi gif ginac gmtfull gmthigh 
gmtsuppl gmttria gnome gpm gps gtk gtk2 gtkhtml imap imlib innodb ipalias ipv6 
jack java jikes jpeg junit kde ldap libg++ libwww lirc mad maildir mcal md5sum 
mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg mpi mysql nas ncurses nls oav offensive oggvorbis 
ospfapi oss pam pcap pda pdflib perl pic plotutils png pnp ppds python qhull qt 
readline samba sasl scanner sdl slang slp snmp socks5 spell sse ssl svga tcltk 
tcpd tetex tiff truetype type1 ungif usagi usb v4l vscan wmf wxwindows x86 xml 
xml2 xmms xv zlib"

[Comment 1 Seemant Kulleen (RETIRED) 2003-12-27 13:30:01 UTC]

seems like you have to set the increment to -1 for backwards seq to work

I'm looking into a patch to enable the old behaviour

[Comment 2 Seemant Kulleen (RETIRED) 2003-12-29 20:15:31 UTC]

robin, can you check this with coreutils-5.0.91-r3 as well, please?

[Comment 3 Seemant Kulleen (RETIRED) 2003-12-29 20:16:11 UTC]

never mind :/  

[Comment 4 Robin Johnson 2004-01-04 18:52:15 UTC]

this is the relevant item from the coreutils ChangeLog:

2003-09-04  Paul Eggert  <[e-mail]>
    * src/seq.c (step): Default to 1.
    (print_numbers): Allow the output to be empty.
    (main): The default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST;
    as per documentation.

now this raises the question of the correct behavior.
should it be the same as sh-utils and coreutils previous to the broken version? eg 'seq 5 1' works, or should it return no output?

[Comment 5 SpanKY 2004-02-22 00:22:46 UTC]

Created attachment 26082 [details, diff]
seq.c.patch

[Comment 6 Seemant Kulleen (RETIRED) 2004-03-05 19:35:10 UTC]

fixed in 5.2.0