Package: sed Version: 4.1.5-6 Severity: normal
Hello, I think the --posix option might be too aggressive wrt the \ character in the replacement string of the 's' command. Some examples: [14:07:17] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ echo foobar | sed --posix -e 's/\(o\)/\1/g' foobar Works OK (using a newline too -- hence it is posix-compliant). But the following behaviour might not: Exhibit 1: [14:07:34] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ echo foobar | sed --posix -e 's/\(o\)/\&/g' fbar Exhibit 2: [14:07:27] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ echo foobar | sed --posix -e 's/\(o\)/\\1/g' f11bar Exhibit 3: [14:07:30] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ echo foobar | sed --posix -e 's/\(o\)/\\/g' fbar Now let me take the relevant part of the POSIX spec for sed, where I put [x] to pinpoint where the spec seems not to be respected: " The replacement string shall be scanned from beginning to end. An ampersand ( '&' ) appearing in the replacement shall be replaced by the string matching the BRE. The special meaning of '&' in this context can be suppressed by preceding it by a backslash. The characters "\n", where n is a digit, shall be replaced by the text matched by the corresponding backreference expression. The special meaning of "\n" where n is a digit in this context, can be suppressed by preceding it by a backslash[2]. For each other backslash ( '\' ) encountered, the following character shall lose its special meaning (if any). The meaning of a '\' immediately followed by any character other than '&'[1], '\'[3], a digit, or the delimiter character used for this command, is unspecified. " If my reading of the spec is correct, the tests above shall return: Exhibit 1: f&&bar (special meaning of & is suppressed, hence actual &s) Exhibit 2: f\1\1bar (special meaning of \1 suppressed) Exhibit 3: f\\bar (special meaning of \ suppressed) Though I might agree that the behaviour for \\ is more implicit in the spec, as it is deduced from the spec of [2]. I stated in the beginning that it was too aggressive for \ as in the sources, characters other than numbers fall into a default in a switch statement without taking \ or & into account, as I remember. Is my understanding of the spec correct and is this indeed a bug of the --posix option ? Regards, Samuel Colin -- System Information: Debian Release: lenny/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.24 (PREEMPT) Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages sed depends on: ii libc6 2.7-10 GNU C Library: Shared libraries sed recommends no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
