View Source: POSIX_ME_HARDER - Waikato Linux Users Group

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[POSIX_ME_HARDER] is an alias for the [POSIXLY_CORRECT] an environment variable that can be used for some programs, particularly those written by people exasperated by some aspect of the [POSIX] standards.


RMS quote (from an interview with Linuxcare in 1999, no longer online? [archive at karmak.org | http://karmak.org/archive/2003/01/12-14-99.epl.html ]):
> To have an excuse to say that we still support the spec, if you define the environment variable, [POSIX_ME_HARDER] was the original way.
> Then a slightly prudish board member convinced me to change it to [POSIXLY_CORRECT] which I now think was a mistake.
> I should have left it as [POSIX_ME_HARDER].

And an [RMS] quote from [an interview with Federico Biancuzzi | http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html?page=2]:
> Some GNU utilities such as df and du do not follow the POSIX spec unless you set the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT. Normally GNU df and du print disk space figures in units of k. POSIX says to print disk space figures in units of 512 bytes. If you set POSIXLY_CORRECT, GNU df and du do that. (My original plan was to name it POSIX_ME_HARDER.) I would guess that very very few users set POSIXLY_CORRECT.

See [Democracy Triumphs in Disk Units|http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9108281809.AA03552%40mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu].
(To put this message in context, there had recently been a coup that resulted in the demise of the Soviet Union.)
Despite that page suggesting that df(1) uses [POSIX_ME_HARDER], at least recent versions don't. So it's not a very good alias.

<verbatim>
$ df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3             18690576   3958640  13782496  23% /
$ POSIX_ME_HARDER=yes df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3             18690576   3958640  13782496  23% /
$ POSIXLY_CORRECT=yes df
Filesystem          512-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3             37381152   7917280  27564992  23% /
</verbatim>

But it's still part of the history. <tt>:)</tt>

One page links to POSIX_ME_HARDER:

POSIXLY_CORRECT

Last edited on Sunday, September 1, 2013 7:35:28 pm by "DanUber"

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