From: "H. Hartzer" <h@hartzer.sh>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Make incorrect ftp(1) usage more obvious
To: "Theo de Raadt" <deraadt@openbsd.org>
Cc: <tech@openbsd.org>
Date: Sun, 04 May 2025 03:14:52 +0000

> Theo de Raadt <deraadt@openbsd.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I disagree strongly.
>> 
>> We follow original POSIX getopt(3) rules in every program, using libc code.
>> 
>> This applies to ALL commands.  No commands are different.
>> 
>> It means all options must be before non-option arguments.
>> 
>> Placing options after non-options is going to break on any non-GLIBC/MUSL
>> system, and you are going to need to get used to that being the wrong
>> thing to do and put your arguments in the standards-mandated order.
>
> Let me put it this way.
>
> % ls /bin -FC
> ls: -FC: No such file or directory
> /bin:
> [*           cp*          domainname*  kill*        mt*          rm*          sleep*
> cat*         cpio*        echo*        ksh*         mv*          rmdir*       stty*
> chgrp*       csh*         ed*          ln*          pax*         sh*          sync*
> chio*        date*        eject*       ls*          ps*          sha1*        tar*
> chmod*       dd*          expr*        md5*         pwd*         sha256*      test*
> cksum*       df*          hostname*    mkdir*       rksh*        sha512*
>
>
> You want to add such a change to every command?  Adding it just one, for your
> finger memory convience, is not reasonable.

Hi Theo,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to this. I'm glad that
this thread at least seemed to lead to the discovery of an option
parsing bug in grep.

I personally like when programs are explicit about being used
incorrectly. I know that I need to learn how to use them properly, of
course. I also think that ls behaves very reasonably.

However, in your example, ls does print an error helping inform the user
that they made a mistake. ftp doesn't do that.

While I personally prefer my original patch, does this patch seem better
to you?

Thank you,

Henrich



diff --git a/usr.bin/ftp/fetch.c b/usr.bin/ftp/fetch.c
index 799cd7124af..94866c273ec 100644
--- a/usr.bin/ftp/fetch.c
+++ b/usr.bin/ftp/fetch.c
@@ -1276,6 +1276,7 @@ auto_fetch(int argc, char *argv[], char *outfile)
        username = pass = NULL;
        for (rval = 0; (rval == 0) && (argpos < argc); free(url), argpos++) {
                if (strchr(argv[argpos], ':') == NULL)
+                       fprintf(ttyout, "%s isn't a valid URL.\n", argv[argpos]);
                        break;

                free(username);