NetBSD Problem Report #59960

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Date: Mon,  2 Feb 2026 20:30:48 +0000 (UTC)
From: bastie@users.noreply.github.com
Reply-To: bastie@users.noreply.github.com
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Subject: wc - missing information in man file
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X-From4GNATS: "bastie@users.noreply.github.com via gnats" <gnats-admin@NetBSD.org>

>Number:         59960
>Category:       standards
>Synopsis:       wc - missing information in man file
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    standards-manager
>State:          closed
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Feb 02 20:35:00 +0000 2026
>Closed-Date:    Mon Feb 02 21:17:54 +0000 2026
>Last-Modified:  Mon Feb 02 21:23:57 +0000 2026
>Originator:     Sebastian RItter
>Release:        
>Organization:
none
>Environment:
I read the man page and the source code.
>Description:
The man page of wc tool do not note - in different to FreeBSD - that the only last "m or c" flag wins the race. 

The source code do it:

https://github.com/NetBSD/src/blob/1d0f224e98c38ff44b6e8b5371ffa141595a286c/usr.bin/wc/wc.c#L93 

...
		case 'm':
			dochar = true;
			dobyte = 0;
			break;
		case 'c':
			dochar = 0;
			dobyte = true;
			break;


The NetBSD documentation writes (https://man.netbsd.org/wc.1):

The following options are available:
...
     -c      The number of bytes in each input file is written to the standard
             output.

     -m      The number of characters in each input file is written to the
             standard output.
...
>How-To-Repeat:
RTFM and source code
>Fix:
Use FreeBSD note:

at -c: This will cancel out any prior usage of the -m option.
at -m This will cancel out any prior usage of the -c option.

or

implementation like GNU wc and remove the cancelation.



>Release-Note:

>Audit-Trail:

From: "Robert Elz" <kre@netbsd.org>
To: gnats-bugs@gnats.NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: PR/59960 CVS commit: src/usr.bin/wc
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2026 21:16:02 +0000

 Module Name:	src
 Committed By:	kre
 Date:		Mon Feb  2 21:16:02 UTC 2026

 Modified Files:
 	src/usr.bin/wc: wc.1

 Log Message:
 PR standards/49960 - note -c and -m are incompatible

 Note, this is not really a standards issue, POSIX says:

 	If the -m option is specified, the number of characters shall
 	replace the <bytes> field in this format.

 There is no output format in POSIX which permits both bytes and
 characters to be specified, and since which value represents which
 counter is determined entirely by position, which of bytes or
 characters would come first if both were to be presented would be
 indeterminate, so I won't be doing that.

 Slightly different wording used than that suggested bty Sebastian Ritter
 in the PR.


 To generate a diff of this commit:
 cvs rdiff -u -r1.18 -r1.19 src/usr.bin/wc/wc.1

 Please note that diffs are not public domain; they are subject to the
 copyright notices on the relevant files.

State-Changed-From-To: open->closed
State-Changed-By: kre@NetBSD.org
State-Changed-When: Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:17:54 +0000
State-Changed-Why:
wc.1 updated to note that -c and -m are incompatible, and
the last given wins.

Since the SYNOPSIS already makes that clear, I don't believe a
pullup of this (even to -11) is needed.


>Unformatted:

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