uutils / uutils/coreutils

bug(head): it returns confusing error messages

Open
#13,089 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

U - head
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
24.1k
Forks
2k
Avg merge
1d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
365

Description

Hi, uutils mainteners

my test confirmed that the uu head, outputs that at the end

relunsec@relunsec:~/software/coreutils/target/debug$ sudo ./head -c77565545456 /dev/mem

head: error writing 'standard output': Operation not permitted

while the gnu one produces that, whiches clear

relunsec@relunsec:~/software/coreutils/target/debug$ sudo gnuhead -c77565545456 /dev/mem
gnuhead: error reading '/dev/mem': Operation not permitted

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the reported uu head -c77565545456 /dev/mem command and trace how the head CLI reports read and write failures. Compare its output with GNU head; done when this input failure reports the /dev/mem read error rather than a confusing standard-output error.

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
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
65/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.