superfluous code in gunzip.c?

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 03 March 2006 1:15 pm, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   gunzip.c contains the snippets:
>
> #define GUNZIP_OPT_STDOUT   1
> #define GUNZIP_OPT_FORCE    2
> #define GUNZIP_OPT_TEST     4
> #define GUNZIP_OPT_DECOMPRESS   8    <--- ??
>
> and
>
> opt = bb_getopt_ulflags(argc, argv, "cftd");   <--  "d" ??
>
> but i don't see where that "d" option is being processed and it's not
> documented online.  dead code?

You'll notice that the gnu versions of gzip and gunzip use the same kind of 
trick busybox does, the two binaries are symlinked together.

If the name "gunzip" is given, it defaults to decompressing.  The -d option is 
there so "gzip -d" can decompress, but since both gzip and gunzip have 
exactly the same options you can give it to gunzip too (in which case it will 
be ignored).  Some scripts, for whatever reason, do this.  (You'd think the 
FSF would have put in a corresponding "Compress when called as gunzip" 
command line option.  As far as I can tell, you'd be wrong.)

So having -d accepted but ignored by our gunzip makes some (arguably broken) 
scripts happy, at the cost of one byte.  No point in adding it to the usage, 
since it doesn't do anything.

> rday

Rob
-- 
Never bet against the cheap plastic solution.