uutils
head: errors on very large argument to -c but shouldn't
Environment: Ubuntu 20.04, uutils main branch (git commit d39dcad47ca4d9fa96e8f8132b4d1c298f1f7753), GNU coreutils v9.6.3-3189c-dirty.
Steps to reproduce:
head --bytes=-18446744073709551616000 < /dev/null
What happens now: uutils head complains that the number is too large:
head: invalid number of bytes: '18446744073709551616000': Value too large for defined data type
What I expected to happen: GNU head terminates successfully with no output.
Notes: this is causing a failure in the GNU test file tests/head/head-c.sh.
Can we know what the behavior is in case the number of bytes overflows unsigned long long without actually testing it (it would be kind of costly I guess) ? Like is it said somewhere esle than the actual int type in the GNU code ?
If not, maybe we can cap the value to u64::MAX, and assume this will be enough until someone proves us otherwise.
Capping the value to u64::MAX is probably good enough to pass the test, I don't know what the GNU head behavior actually is.
coreutils state that in case of overflow it would silently cap to MAX value but on any system I try the given command
head --bytes=-18446744073709551616000 < /dev/null
I get the error message
head: invalid number of bytes: '18446744073709551616000': Value too large for defined data type
so not sure if this is not a bad behavior from coreutils
