Re: [Lzip-bug] Lzip 1.20-pre2 released

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hi Timothy,

Timothy Beryl Grahek wrote:
> I used the sha256sum you generated on lzip-1.20-pre2.tar.gz before I
> installed it. I have tested the following and there are no bugs after
> testing each more than once:

Well done, and thanks.


> $ lzip -vvvv0 Test.tar.lz
> lzip: Input file 'Test.tar.lz' already has '.lz' suffix.
>
> This is a very informative message; however, it doesn't let me know
> whether this file or a file without the '.lz' suffix exists or not.

Compressing an already compressed file is rarely useful, but you can do 
it using the option '-F, --recompress':

$ ls test*
  test.lz
$ lzip -Fv test.lz
  test.lz:  0.986:1, 101.44% ratio, -1.44% saved, 37019 in, 37552 out.


> I think it would be helpful if Lzip could indicate that any file with
> or without the '.lz' suffix does or does not exist, such as like
> this:
>
> $ lzip foo.tar.lz
> lzip: Input file 'foo.tar.lz' already has '.lz' suffix. 'foo.tar.lz'
> exists.

Note that if a file does not exist, lzip warns about the fact:

$ rm test.lz
$ lzip -F test.lz
  lzip: test.lz: Can't open input file: No such file or directory


> $ lzip foo.tar.lz
> lzip: Input file 'foo.tar.lz' already has '.lz' suffix. 'foo.tar'
> exists.
>
> $ lzip foo.tar.lz
> lzip: Input file 'foo.tar.lz' already has '.lz' suffix. 'foo.tar'
> does not exist.

What is the use of these two? You are not trying to create the file 
'foo.tar', but 'foo.tar.lz.lz'.


> It seems reasonable to mention the existence of 'foo.tar.lz' only if
> 'foo.tar' doesn't exist; if 'foo.tar' does exist, it's not meaningful to
> mention that 'foo.tar.lz' also exists. Similarly, if neither 'foo.tar'
> exists nor 'foo.tar.lz' exists, then it's reasonable to me to mention
> that 'foo.tar' does not exist, while it is meaningless to mention
> anything about 'foo.tar.lz'.

I think it seems reasonable to not mention a file name not involved in 
the operation being performed. Lzip currently reports any actual problem 
with the files involved (does not exist, can't be created, etc).


> Anyhow, do you think this is a worthwhile feature to implement? If not,
> I completely understand, but I just thought I would bring it to your
> attention.

Thanks. What you propose seems like "greedy" reporting; report 
everything that went or will go wrong, or may be interesting to know. I 
think the norm is to complain only when a problem is found.


> I will use Lzip 1.20 Pre2 on all my machines that I can install it on
> and I will look for any other bugs. The results posted above are based
> on Arch Linux x86-64. I had some problems installing Lzip from source
> the other day using Cygwin; if I still keep having problems with that, I
> will open a thread about it; it's probably unrelated to the new release
> and is likely just a Cygwin problem.

Thanks again for your help.


Best regards,
Antonio.