Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hcrvx1.UUCP Path: utzoo!hcrvax!hcrvx1!hugh From: hugh@hcrvx1.UUCP (Hugh Redelmeier) Newsgroups: net.bugs.usg Subject: find(1) manual deficiency Message-ID: <1225@hcrvx1.UUCP> Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 13:01:05 EDT Article-I.D.: hcrvx1.1225 Posted: Fri Aug 23 13:01:05 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 03:03:53 EDT Organization: Human Computing Resources, Toronto Lines: 22 The find manual in "UNIX(TM) System V -- Release 2.0 User Reference Manual" has dropped a detail about the -perm operator. As a result, the manual is wrong. Furthermore, an important facility has been lost. (The command itself has not lost the facility, but if it is not documented it should be considered gone.) The missing fragment is: ... and the flags are compared: (flags&onum)==onum In context, this explains how matching is done when onum of "-perm onum" begins with a minus sign. Earlier, matching was described as comparison for equality, hence without this fragment, the manual is wrong. Granted that this expression is only understandable to a C programmer, but that is better than keeping it secret! The manual says to see stat(2) to learn the meanings of the permission bits in octal. In fact, this is never explained in stat(2), nor is it easy to see from stat(2) where it is explained. The correct section is mknod(2). Neither stat(2) nor mknod(2) are in the manual that has find(1), so this cross-referencing is inconvenient. Hugh Redelmeier (416) 922-1937 {utzoo, ihnp4, decvax}!hcr!hugh