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Last update: 20 April,2001

								1003.2-92  #19

	Class: The unaddressed issue

The standard does not speak to this issue, and as such no conformance
distinction can be made between alternative implementations based on this.
This is being referred to the Sponsors of the standard for clarifying 
wording in the next amendment.

This response will be incorporated in an IEEE interpretations
publication, and will be also made available on-line on the IEEE 
SPAsystem.

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	Interpretation Number:	(to be assigned by the IEEE)
	Topic:			pax
	Relevant Sections:	4.48.3


Interpretation Request: (Defect Report)
-----------------------

 
          In Section 4.48.3 - Options {of pax}, the standard describes 
          the -i option: 
 
               Interactively rename  files  or  archive  members. 
               For each archive member matching a pattern operand 
               or file matching a file operand, a prompt shall be 
               written to the file /dev/tty.   The  prompt  shall 
               contain the name of the file  or  archive  member, 
               but is otherwise unspecified.  A line  shall  then 
               be read from /dev/tty.  If this line is blank, the 
               file or archive member shall be skipped.  If  this 
               line consists of a  single  period,  the  file  or 
               archive  member  shall  be   processed   with   no 
               modification to its  name.   Otherwise,  its  name 
               shall be replaced with the contents of  the  line. 
 
               The pax utility  shall  immediately  exit  with  a 
               nonzero exit status if end-of-file is  encountered 
               when reading a response or if /dev/tty  cannot  be 
               opened for reading and writing. 
 
          [Draft 12 of IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (July 1992), p. 402, lines 
          7772-7783] 
 
          The  standard  previously  stated,  in  Section   4.48.2   - 
          Description {of pax}, that ``if the selected archive  format 
          supports the specification of linked files, it shall  be  an 
          error if these files cannot be linked when  the  archive  is 
          extracted.  Any of the various names  in  the  archive  that 
          represent a  file  can  be  used  to  select  the  file  for 
          extraction.''  [Ibid., p. 401, lines 7741-7744] 
 
          If an attempt is made to extract a file from a ustar archive 
          based on a link-name to a previous  member  of  the  archive 
          that had been renamed using the -i option, does the file get 
          linked to the new name, or is this an error condition? 
 

IEEE Interpretation for 1003.2-1992 
-----------------------------------
The standard is silent on this issue, allowing any behavior in this
area. Concern over the wording of this section has been forwarded to the
Sponsors of the standard.

Rationale for Interpretation:
-----------------------------
None.
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