Re: Bug#164889: md5sum <FILE produces spurious ` -' in output

[Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au>]

On Sun, Nov 10, 2002 at 08:43:53PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 10, 2002 at 05:52:08PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> >  2. We have concluded that
> >      * md5sum is significantly more useful if there is a way to
> >        produce the `bare' output format (ie, without trailing ` -').
> Hmm.. sorry, I let this one slip by me.
> What breaks?  

debootstrap broke. Things of the form:

	x=`cat foo.changes | grep blah.*deb | cut -d\  -f2`
	y=`md5sum < blah*.deb`
	if [ "$x" != "$y" ]; then
		...
	fi

(ie, get the expected md5sum from somewhere, and try to get the real md5sum
then compare) break.

I don't see why GNU textutils upstream hasn't been contacted for their
opinion. Seeing if they're willing to change textutil's behaviour from
something that seems to have no particular benefits, would seem like
the easiest way to avoid gratuitious incompatabilities with other distros.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

 ``If you don't do it now, you'll be one year older when you do.''