uname -a default options

[Cy Schubert]

On October 15, 2019 9:26:00 AM PDT, Mark Johnston <markj at freebsd.org> wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 05:41:26PM +0200, Gordon Bergling wrote:
>> Hello List,
>> 
>> "uname -a" is currently mapping the -a option to „-mnrsv“, which
>results in something similar like
>> 
>> $ uname -a
>> FreeBSD lion.0xfce3.net 12.0-STABLE FreeBSD 12.0-STABLE r350835
>GENERIC  amd64
>> 
>> What would you think about reducing the option mapping for „-a“ to
>„-vmn“ , which would result in a less repetitive version string like
>the one below.
>> 
>> $ uname -vmn
>> lion.0xfce3.net FreeBSD 12.0-STABLE r350835 GENERIC  amd64
>> 
>> Adapting this would be trivial, but before I hack something together,
>I would like to get some feedback if such a change would be welcomed?
>
>I'm not sure about the history which led to the current behaviour of
>-a,
>but the unfortunately reality is that changes like the one you propose
>will likely break programs that process uname -a output.  Of course,
>such programs should likely be using more specialized uname options
>instead, but the current behaviour of -a has been in place for
>something
>like 25 years, so it's quite likely that something depends on it.  In
>these situations I prefer to maintain backwards compatibility.
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How about a $UNAME_A environment variable? The downside: people will submit PRs taking time from legitimate development.



-- 
Pardon the typos and autocorrect, small keyboard in use. 
Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert at cschubert.com>
FreeBSD UNIX: <cy at FreeBSD.org> Web: https://www.FreeBSD.org

The need of the many outweighs the greed of the few.

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