diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/ChangeLog | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/coreutils.texi | 18 |
2 files changed, 13 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/doc/ChangeLog b/doc/ChangeLog index 005a6e861..537367821 100644 --- a/doc/ChangeLog +++ b/doc/ChangeLog @@ -1,3 +1,7 @@ +2005-03-26 Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> + + * coreutils.texi: Clarify NUL vs null byte vs null character. + 2005-03-18 Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> * coreutils.texi (nohup invocation): Clarify nohup.out creation. diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi index 69134f338..c7b1fa1ea 100644 --- a/doc/coreutils.texi +++ b/doc/coreutils.texi @@ -3433,7 +3433,7 @@ However, fields that extend to the end of the line, as @option{-k 2}, or fields consisting of a range, as @option{-k 2,3}, retain the field separators present between the endpoints of the range. -To specify a zero byte (@acronym{ASCII} @sc{nul} (Null) character) as +To specify a null character (@acronym{ASCII} @sc{nul}) as the field separator, use the two-character string @samp{\0}, e.g., @samp{sort -t '\0'}. @@ -3473,9 +3473,9 @@ uniq} inspects the entire line. @xref{uniq invocation}. @opindex -z @opindex --zero-terminated @cindex sort zero-terminated lines -Treat the input as a set of lines, each terminated by a zero byte -(@acronym{ASCII} @sc{nul} (Null) character) instead of an -@acronym{ASCII} @sc{lf} (Line Feed). +Treat the input as a set of lines, each terminated by a null character +(@acronym{ASCII} @sc{nul}) instead of a line feed +(@acronym{ASCII} @sc{lf}). This option can be useful in conjunction with @samp{perl -0} or @samp{find -print0} and @samp{xargs -0} which do the same in order to reliably handle arbitrary file names (even those containing blanks @@ -4416,7 +4416,7 @@ disabled, width of references is not taken into account in the output line width computations. @item -All 256 characters, even @sc{nul}s, are always read and processed from +All 256 bytes, even null bytes, are always read and processed from input file with no adverse effect, even if @sc{gnu} extensions are disabled. However, System V @command{ptx} does not accept 8-bit characters, a few control characters are rejected, and the tilde @kbd{~} is also rejected. @@ -8890,14 +8890,14 @@ are often symbolic links. @opindex --files0-from=@var{FILE} @cindex including files from @command{du} Rather than processing files named on the command line, process those -in the @sc{nul}-terminated list in file @var{FILE}. +named in file @var{FILE}; each name is terminated by a null byte. This is useful with the @option{--total} (@option{-c}) option when the list of file names is so long that it may exceed a command line length limitation. In such cases, running @command{du} via @command{xargs} is undesirable because it splits the list into pieces and makes @command{du} print a total for each sublist rather than for the entire list. -One way to produce a list of @sc{nul}-terminated file names is with @sc{gnu} +One way to produce a list of null-byte-terminated file names is with @sc{gnu} @command{find}, using its @option{-print0} predicate. Do not specify any @var{FILE} on the command line when using this option. @@ -8953,8 +8953,8 @@ is at level 0, so @code{du --max-depth=0} is equivalent to @code{du -s}. @opindex -0 @itemx --null @opindex --null -@cindex output @sc{nul}-terminated lines -Output the zero byte (@sc{nul}) at the end of each line, rather than a newline. +@cindex output null-byte-terminated lines +Output a null byte at the end of each line, rather than a newline. This option enables other programs to parse the output of @command{du} even when that output would contain file names with embedded newlines. |