[Adduser-devel] Bug#515909: despite man page claims, a warning is not shown.

[Joerg Hoh]

Hi all

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 02:32:13AM -0800, shaul Karl wrote:
> Package: adduser
> Version: 3.110
> Severity: normal
> 
> man page claims:
> 
>        If called with one non-option  argument  and  the  --system  
>        option, adduser will add a system user. If a user with the same 
>        name already exists in the system uid range (or, if the uid is  
>        specified,  if  a user  with  that uid already exists), adduser 
>        will exit with a warning.
> 
>     and
> 
>     --quiet
>        Suppress  informational  messages,  only  show  warnings  and
>        errors.
> 
> However this doesn't work for me. I do have an ftp user:
> 
> # adduser --quiet --system ftp
> #

I just checked it against current version (line 351pp):

    if (existing_user_ok($new_name, $new_uid) == 2) {
        printf (gtx("The user `%s' already exists with a different UID. Exiting.\n"), $new_name) if $verbose;
        exit 1;
    }

We have a lot of message depending on $verbose, which is "1" by default,
unless switched to "0" by adding --quiet. 

I am unsure how we should proceed with it. --quiet is used in scripts and
should prevent adduser from printing anything (at least that's my guess).
So we should keep this behaviour. Instead I suggest to enhance the manpage
to something like this:

     --quiet
        Suppress any message, including error and warnings. Use this
	parameter only when you use adduser in other scripts.

Ok?

Jörg

-- 
What did you do to the cat? It looks half-dead. -Schroedinger's wife
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