Bug 433579 – sys-apps/file-5.11 - `file --version' returns a 1 error status code

• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Matthew Schultz 2012-08-31 22:22:13 UTC]

file improperly returns a status code of 1 after executing file --version.  This notes that the command errored even though it was a successful execution and should have returned 0.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. A simple bash script:

#!/bin/bash
file --version
echo $?

2. Output:

file-5.11
magic file from /usr/share/misc/magic
1
Actual Results:  
returns status code of 1

Expected Results:  
return status code of 0

[Comment 1 Matthew Schultz 2012-08-31 22:34:35 UTC]

In addition, the man page indicates that the return code should be 0 on success and makes no exception for file --version.

[Comment 2 Matthew Schultz 2012-08-31 23:00:45 UTC]

Created attachment 322675 [details, diff]
file-version-status-code.patch

Modifies file so it returns a status code of 0 as it should when successfully executing and showing the current version of file installed with the command: file --version.  This patch should be applied to all versions of file currently in portage.  I'm not sure how to notify upstream so someone might want to do that so it gets fixed there as well.

[Comment 3 SpanKY 2012-09-04 19:10:43 UTC]

upstream has a bugzilla to submit fixes to directly ...

http://bugs.gw.com/

[Comment 4 Matthew Schultz 2012-09-04 19:28:40 UTC]

(In reply to comment #3)
> upstream has a bugzilla to submit fixes to directly ...
> 
> http://bugs.gw.com/

I wasn't aware that they did.  I just figured it was magic that they knew about anything since the homepage just points to an ftp site.

[Comment 5 SpanKY 2012-09-04 20:25:23 UTC]

(In reply to comment #4)

yeah, visibility into the file processes is pretty bad

[Comment 6 Matthew Schultz 2012-09-06 12:32:55 UTC]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> 
> yeah, visibility into the file processes is pretty bad

Adding some information about where to report bugs and who are the upstream maintainers in the metadata.xml might help.

[Comment 7 Matthew Schultz 2012-09-06 14:36:43 UTC]

I filed a bug with upstream and it has just been patched so I suppose we should see this fix in the next version: http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=198

[Comment 8 SpanKY 2012-09-06 19:51:06 UTC]

good idea

http://sources.gentoo.org/sys-apps/file/metadata.xml?r1=1.3&r2=1.4

[Comment 9 Matthew Schultz 2012-09-06 20:01:40 UTC]

(In reply to comment #8)
> good idea
> 
> http://sources.gentoo.org/sys-apps/file/metadata.xml?r1=1.3&r2=1.4

I don't see any change in metadata at that link.  Has it just not been committed yet?

[Comment 10 SpanKY 2012-09-06 21:22:44 UTC]

you're too fast.  the web cvs syncs periodically with the real tree.

[Comment 11 Matthew Schultz 2012-09-06 22:32:33 UTC]

(In reply to comment #10)
> you're too fast.  the web cvs syncs periodically with the real tree.

ah ok, I didn't realize there was a delay. :-)