Package: cron
Version: 3.0pl1-105
Severity: minor

The effect of the -i option of crontab is not clear. According to the
crontab(1) man page, -i is accepted only for -r:

       crontab [ -u user ] file
       crontab [ -u user ] { -l | -r [ -i ] | -e }

whereas it seems to be accepted globally (however, it seems to have
an effect only on -r, though "crontab file" is IMHO as destructive
and possibly the -e option as well).

"crontab" usage information is also ambiguous:

usage:  crontab [-u user] file
        crontab [-u user] { -e | -l | -r }
                (default operation is replace, per 1003.2)
        -e      (edit user's crontab)
        -l      (list user's crontab)
        -r      (delete user's crontab)
        -i      (prompt before deleting user's crontab)

-i is not mentioned in one of the first two lines.

I suggest that the -i option should remain global, so that the man page
and usage text should say:

       crontab [ -i ] [ -u user ] file
       crontab [ -i ] [ -u user ] { -l | -r | -e }

and the documentation (man page and usage text) should say which
operation(s) this option -i affects.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26.5-20080922 (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=POSIX, LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1 (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages cron depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.110      add and remove users and groups
ii  debianutils                   2.30       Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                         2.7-18     GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libpam0g                      1.0.1-5    Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libselinux1                   2.0.65-5   SELinux shared libraries
ii  lsb-base                      3.2-20     Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip

Versions of packages cron recommends:
ii  exim4                         4.69-9     metapackage to ease Exim MTA (v4) 
ii  exim4-daemon-light [mail-tran 4.69-9     lightweight Exim MTA (v4) daemon

Versions of packages cron suggests:
ii  anacron                       2.3-13.1   cron-like program that doesn't go 
pn  checksecurity                 <none>     (no description available)
ii  lockfile-progs                0.1.11-0.1 Programs for locking and unlocking
ii  logrotate                     3.7.7-3    Log rotation utility

-- no debconf information



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