[gentoo-user] [RESOLVED] Change History of linux commands

[n952162]

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history of
linux commands?
For example, the test(1) command used to have a regular-expression
parser built in.  No longer, and more surprising, there's no discussion
of its disappearance on the internet; that I can find, at any rate.
I'd to know when it disappeared and what discussions, by whom, preceded
that.

Sorry, I'm thinking of the expr(1) command.

[Grant Taylor]

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history of
linux commands?

Some man pages have history of commands in them.

Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have access
to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this aspect.

[n952162]

Post by Grant Taylor

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history of
linux commands?

Some man pages have history of commands in them.
Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this aspect.

Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
themselves?

Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream source? 
Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds private
server?  Or the gnu server?

[tastytea]

Post by n952162

Post by Grant Taylor

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
of linux commands?

Some man pages have history of commands in them.
Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this aspect.

Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
themselves?
Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream source? 
Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds private
server?  Or the gnu server?

/usr/bin/test[1] was installed by sys-apps/coreutils[2], it's homepage
is <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>[3], that links to the
source code repository.

Other ways to find out:
- `equery meta sys-apps/coreutils`
- `less $(portageq get_repo_path / gentoo)/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-8.32-r1.ebuild`

Kind regards, tastytea

[1] `whereis test`
[2] `qfile /usr/bin/test` or `equery belongs /usr/bin/test`
[3] `eix sys-apps/coreutils` or emerge -s sys-apps/coreutils`

[Michael Orlitzky]

/usr/bin/test was installed by sys-apps/coreutils

If you're using bash, the "test" command is actually built-in to the
shell to avoid forking a million processes in every shell script.

[n952162]

Post by tastytea

Post by n952162

Post by Grant Taylor

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
of linux commands?

Some man pages have history of commands in them.
Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this aspect.

Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
themselves?
Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream source?
Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds private
server?  Or the gnu server?

/usr/bin/test[1] was installed by sys-apps/coreutils[2], it's homepage
is <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>[3], that links to the
source code repository.
- `equery meta sys-apps/coreutils`
- `less $(portageq get_repo_path / gentoo)/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-8.32-r1.ebuild`
Kind regards, tastytea
[1] `whereis test`
[2] `qfile /usr/bin/test` or `equery belongs /usr/bin/test`
[3] `eix sys-apps/coreutils` or emerge -s sys-apps/coreutils`

Oh, that's good.  Thank you.

[Matt Connell]

Post by tastytea
equery meta

Ashamed to admit I learned of equery meta today. I'd previously been
relying on eix to find, say, the website associated with a package.

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Matt Connell
Ashamed to admit I learned of equery meta today. I'd previously been
relying on eix to find, say, the website associated with a package.

NEVER be ashamed to admit that you learned something.

Learning is a good thing.

It doesn't matter when you learn it as long as you do learn.

I think that being ashamed about not knowing something tends to promote
what I consider to be a negative stigmata that people should know
everything and that they should hide what they don't know.

I've been administering Linux professionally for more than two decades
and I still learn new things weekly if not daily.

Help pull others up, don't hold them down by climbing on top of them.

[Matt Connell]

Post by Grant Taylor
I think that being ashamed about not knowing something tends to promote
what I consider to be a negative stigmata that people should know
everything and that they should hide what they don't know.

Was more just laughing at myself for having used equery so frequently
for ~10 years and not knowing about the option.

And if I was hiding it, I wouldn't have publicly replied that I learned
it :)

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Matt Connell
Was more just laughing at myself for having used equery so frequently
for ~10 years and not knowing about the option.

Fair enough.

Post by Matt Connell
And if I was hiding it, I wouldn't have publicly replied that I
learned it :)

TIL

You accidentally struck a button for me. As the ... more experienced SA
on teams for a while, I tend to not tolerate people hording / not
sharing information and / or making fun of others for not knowing
something. So I counter this by actively promoting people learning
things as a good thing.

[Dale]

Post by Matt Connell

Post by tastytea
equery meta

Ashamed to admit I learned of equery meta today. I'd previously been
relying on eix to find, say, the website associated with a package.

I just checked that out and it is nifty.  Now to remember the option
next time I need it.  :/  You were not alone in missing that option.  I
had no idea it was there either.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

[Róbert Čerňanský]

On Fri, 7 Oct 2022 17:47:51 +0200

Post by tastytea

Post by n952162

Post by Grant Taylor

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
of linux commands?

Some man pages have history of commands in them.
Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this aspect.

Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
themselves?
Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream
source? Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds
private server?  Or the gnu server?

/usr/bin/test[1] was installed by sys-apps/coreutils[2], it's homepage
is <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>[3], that links to the
source code repository.

For me the first and most obvious place to look at is
/usr/share/doc/<package>/. Usually there is NEWS or ChangeLog file or
both. Which <package> it is you can get from man page (it is written
at the end in the "footer") or with command

$ equery belongs `which <command>`.

[Philip Webb]

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
of linux commands ?

There's the Wayback Machine, which tries to archive all I/net pages ever.
I've never used it, but it should have copies of man pages going back,
which would allow you to reconstruct the history of the commands.

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Philip Webb
There's the Wayback Machine, which tries to archive all I/net pages ever.

Sadly, there are a lot of pages that the Wayback Machine a.k.a. The
Internet Archive doesn't have archived. TIA / WM is a best effort
system and is a lot better than not having anything at all.

Post by Philip Webb
I've never used it, but it should have copies of man pages going back,
which would allow you to reconstruct the history of the commands.

I don't think that searching the internet for old copies of man pages is
going to be as productive as one might hope. First there's the SysV vs
BSD lineage to account for. Second there's all the other things that
don't fall in the SysV / BSD camps, mostly older.

I'd suggest inquiring on the TUHS or COFF mailing lists for pointers to
history of various commands. You may very well be pointed to archived
man pages. But you'll also have comments from people who maintained
commands and possibly added the option that you're most interested in.

[Alan J. Wylie]

(resending with correct From: address)

Post by n952162

Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history of
linux commands?
For example, the test(1) command used to have a regular-expression
parser built in.  No longer, and more surprising, there's no discussion
of its disappearance on the internet; that I can find, at any rate.
I'd to know when it disappeared and what discussions, by whom, preceded
that.

Sorry, I'm thinking of the expr(1) command.

The man pages (and source code) of old versions of UNIX can be found at

https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl

e.g. ("man 1 expr" from Jan 1992)
https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V10/man/man1/expr.1

For more human readable output
$ cd tmp
$ cat > oldman.1
<copy and paste>
$ man ./oldman.1