Re: rm (FU 4.0) odd bug? rm -i accepting 's' as 'y'

[Jim Meyering]

Pete Krawczyk <address@hidden> wrote:
| address@hidden /tmp]# rm --version
| rm (GNU fileutils) 4.0
| address@hidden /tmp]# ls -al foo
| ls: foo: No such file or directory
| address@hidden /tmp]# touch foo
| address@hidden /tmp]# ls -al foo
| -rw-r--r--   1 root     root            0 Dec 27 14:44 foo
| address@hidden /tmp]# rm -i foo
| rm: remove `foo'? s
| address@hidden /tmp]# ls -al foo
| ls: foo: No such file or directory
|
| Should this be construed as a bug, or is it a feature (perhaps 's' for
| si) and forgotten in the documentation?

At first glance, I'd have said...
Right, assuming `si' in your selected locale means `yes'.
Though if it is an internationalization issue, I would have expected
the prompt string to say not `remove ...', but the translation of `remove'.

| The best I can trace it to is that yesno() uses a regexp, which checks for
| Yy or Nn.  But I can't figure out where 's' would cause it to remove the
| file, whereas 'm' wouldn't.

It depends on the locale you're using, since the regexp string
is enclosed in `_(...)'.  If you set LC_ALL=C in your environment,
you should get the expected behavior.

In some upcoming release, even the english prompt string will include
the choices.

  rm: remove `foo'? (no/yes)

Hmm... I see that the spanish translation of that message already
includes the choices -- at least in the latest test release:

  $ grep -A1 '"%s: remove %s? "' po/es.po
  msgid "%s: remove %s? "
  msgstr "%s: borrar `%s'? (s/n) "