uutils / uutils/coreutils

bug(kill): using $'\xFF' as the signal, it treated as empty argument

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U - kill
Dominant language
Rust
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Description

Hi, uutils mainteners

that is a parsing issue with the uutils kill, when using

relunsec@relunsec:~/software/coreutils/target/debug$ ./kill -s=$'\xFF' 90950

the problem is here $'\xFF' just rendered -s the signal argument as empty value and kill the process with the default SIGTERM, while the gnu one rejects it correctly

relunsec@relunsec:~/software/coreutils/target/debug$ kill -s $'\xFF' 90950
bash: kill: �: invalid signal specification

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Research direction

Start by reproducing the reported ./kill -s=$'\xFF' 90950 behavior and compare it with GNU kill -s $'\xFF'. Trace the signal-argument parsing entry point; done means the invalid value is rejected instead of being treated as an empty argument and defaulting to SIGTERM.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
52/100

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