bugfindutils - Bugs: bug #62227, Incorrect warning for -name /

 
 

bug #62227: Incorrect warning for -name /

Submitter:  None
Submitted:  Mon 28 Mar 2022 06:37:13 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  find Severity:  3 - Normal
Item Group:  Wrong result Status:  Fixed
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  berny
Originator Name:  Originator Email:  -email is unavailable-
Open/Closed:  Open Release:  4.9.0
Fixed Release:  None
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Sun 24 Apr 2022 11:50:43 AM UTC, comment #7: 

Good catch, thanks.

Fixed and pushed here:
https://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/findutils.git/commit/?id=6d2fa2c9

Bernhard Voelker <berny>
Group administrator
Fri 15 Apr 2022 07:14:24 AM UTC, comment #6: 

comment #5:

> Okay, I agree.
>
> The attached patch changes the behavior (with the first one doing
> a trivial cleanup), and I'd like to improve the documentation further in a separate patch.
>
> Please check.
>
> (file #53051, file #53052)


Thanks, the code seems to do what I expect. However, the test may fail if the test suite is run when stdin is not a tty, as that suppresses warnings. To test that, you can run 'make check </dev/null'.

Anonymous
Thu 07 Apr 2022 04:31:00 PM UTC, comment #5: 

Okay, I agree.

The attached patch changes the behavior (with the first one doing
a trivial cleanup), and I'd like to improve the documentation further in a separate patch.

Please check.

(file #53051, file #53052)

Bernhard Voelker <berny>
Group administrator
Tue 29 Mar 2022 01:04:41 PM UTC, comment #4: 

comment #3:

> So for my understanding:
> if 'find / -prune -name /' boils down to 'echo /', then what is
> the real use case behind?


In that case it does not do anything useful, sure. To get something useful we would need to add more. A minimal example to demonstrate the use of -name / might be


$ find / ! -name / -prune


This prints all entries in the root directory without recursing, in a way that should work in any POSIX-compatible implementation of find.

Anonymous
Tue 29 Mar 2022 06:14:58 AM UTC, comment #3: 

I'm just a bit reluctant because '-name /' will really only find
a match if "/" is given as starting point (which we don't know at
the time of parsing the expression tree).
In all other cases it is better for a user to keep the simple rule
in mind that the -name pattern must never contain a slash.
Hence to issue a warning is a good thing IMO.

So for my understanding:
if 'find / -prune -name /' boils down to 'echo /', then what is
the real use case behind?

Bernhard Voelker <berny>
Group administrator
Tue 29 Mar 2022 01:41:22 AM UTC, comment #2: 

comment #1:

> I personally like to get such a warning, as one should try to use -name/-iname
> with patterns for basenames only, and I think that the use case 'find / -prune -name /'
> is quite exotic (and I would never have tried it myself TBH), so I'm wondering if it's
> worth bothering to improve the warning diagnostic as shown above.


I agree that it makes sense to warn for a name that cannot ever be a basename, but that means no warning should be issued for -name /, as / is a valid basename.

For the record, -name / and -wholename / do not match in exactly the same cases, because the basename of the root directory is / regardless of how it is spelt:


$ find /// -prune -name /
find: warning: ‘-name’ matches against basenames only, but the given pattern contains a directory separator (‘/’), thus the expression will evaluate to false all the time.  Did you mean ‘-wholename’?
///

$ find /// -prune -wholename /
find: warning: -wholename / will not match anything because it ends with /.


(That is another incorrect warning, -wholename / certainly can match despite ending in /, but that is not part of this bug report.)

Anonymous
Mon 28 Mar 2022 09:24:14 PM UTC, comment #1: 

It's true: even a comment in function pred_name_common [1] says that the
name pattern '/' has to match the "/" root file system entry:


Recall that 'find / -name /' is one of the few times where a '/'
in the -name must actually find something.


[1] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/findutils.git/tree/find/pred.c?id=43679658e2b#n464

The check with the warning is a GNU extension during the parsing of the command line
in function check_name_arg [2], and is therefore not issued with either the -nowarn
option or the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT set.

[2] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/findutils.git/tree/find/parser.c?id=43679658e2b#n1270

Well, we could differentiate if the pattern is a plain "/" and in that
case say something like this:

diff --git a/find/parser.c b/find/parser.c
index c65ae1a8..0562372f 100644
--- a/find/parser.c
+++ b/find/parser.c
@@ -1272,14 +1272,29 @@ check_name_arg (const char *pred, const char *alt, const char *arg)
 {
   if (should_issue_warnings () && strchr (arg, '/'))
     {
-      error (0, 0,
-            _("warning: %s matches against basenames only, "
-              "but the given pattern contains a directory separator (%s), "
-              "thus the expression will evaluate to false all the time.  "
-              "Did you mean %s?"),
-           safely_quote_err_filename (0, pred),
-           safely_quote_err_filename (1, "/"),
-           safely_quote_err_filename (2, alt));
+      if (0 == strcmp ("/", arg))
+       {
+         error (0, 0,
+                _("warning: %s matches against basenames only, "
+                  "but the given pattern equals the directory separator (%s), "
+                  "and hence will only match the file system root entry %s.  "
+                  "Did you mean %s?"),
+                safely_quote_err_filename (0, pred),
+                safely_quote_err_filename (1, "/"),
+                safely_quote_err_filename (2, "/"),
+                safely_quote_err_filename (3, alt));
+       }
+      else
+       {
+         error (0, 0,
+                _("warning: %s matches against basenames only, "
+                  "but the given pattern contains a directory separator (%s), "
+                  "thus the expression will evaluate to false all the time.  "
+                  "Did you mean %s?"),
+                safely_quote_err_filename (0, pred),
+                safely_quote_err_filename (1, "/"),
+                safely_quote_err_filename (2, alt));
+       }
     }
 }


This would result in:

find: warning: '-name' matches against basenames only, but the given pattern equals the directory separator ('/'), and hence will only match the file system root entry '/'.  Did you mean '-wholename'?


I personally like to get such a warning, as one should try to use -name/-iname
with patterns for basenames only, and I think that the use case 'find / -prune -name /'
is quite exotic (and I would never have tried it myself TBH), so I'm wondering if it's
worth bothering to improve the warning diagnostic as shown above.

Bernhard Voelker <berny>
Group administrator
Mon 28 Mar 2022 06:37:13 AM UTC, original submission:  


$ find / -prune -name /
find/find: warning: ‘-name’ matches against basenames only, but the given pattern contains a directory separator (‘/’), thus the expression will evaluate to false all the time.  Did you mean ‘-wholename’?
/


The warning says -name / will evaluate to false all the time, but as the test demonstrates by printing /, in this case it is not correct. The warning makes sense for -name options where the argument to -name is multiple characters and one of them is /, but when the full argument is /, there should probably be no warning at all, or if you do feel it should still warn, the warning text should be changed to something that is more accurate.

Anonymous

 

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Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

Attached Files
file #53051:  0001-maint-simplify-check_name_arg-in-parser.c.patch added by berny (3KiB - text/x-patch - PATCH: find: omit warning diagnostic for -name '/')
file #53052:  0002-find-omit-warning-diagnostic-for-name.patch added by berny (7KiB - text/x-patch - PATCH: find: omit warning diagnostic for -name '/')

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

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    Follow 6 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2022-04-24 berny StatusCode Review Fixed
    2022-04-07 berny Attached File- Added 0001-maint-simplify-check_name_arg-in-parser.c.patch, #53051
        Attached File- Added 0002-find-omit-warning-diagnostic-for-name.patch, #53052
        StatusIn Progress Code Review
    2022-03-28 berny StatusNone In Progress
        Assigned toNone berny

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