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Misty

Apple. Apple please. You can't use the same short flag for two different things. Apple *please*

     -v, --verbose
             Sets (with a numeric value) or increments the verbosity level of output. Without the verbose
             option, no output is produced upon success, in the classic UNIX style.  If no other options
             request a different action, the first -v encountered will be interpreted as --verify instead
             (and does not increase verbosity).

     -v, --verify
             Requests verification of code signatures.  If other actions (sign, display, etc.) are also
             requested, -v is interpreted to mean --verbose.
76 comments
YHANCI~1.TXT

@misty make all the flags "-v" and interpret their meaning based on context. It's easier to remember, and Apple as always been about simplifying the users' life, right? ;)

vga256

@misty πŸ˜† confirmed the same on monterey. that is absolutely a work of art

Citty

@misty "oops, you added another flag, you are now no longer verifying signatures" is a WILD failure mode

Zimmie

@citty @misty This is codesign, a tool for generating code signatures. I don’t think any of the other options would make sense with verifying a signature.

Don’t get me wrong, this is incredibly bad design. I just doubt it could be a security hole like you would normally expect not verifying a signature to be.

Citty

@bob_zim @misty ah, that makes a bit more sense. Still wild but I take back the all caps

Misty

@artandtechnic The -v flag accidentally doing the wrong thing based on argument order is an INCREDIBLE footgun

Denis Warburton

@misty I’m legitimately impressed.

This single man page entry deserves its own β€˜stop doing math’ meme.

Mut
@misty if someone wants to know what particular progam this is: it's codesign, I have not seen this mentioned yet in the replies
alexwlchan

@misty plot twist: when there’s a full moon, the -v flag prints the version number

karoshi

@misty but can you do a verbose verify with -v -v?

solastalgia kris

@misty

Python did this better, in that -v is verbose and -V is version, except I can't never remember which is which and I get Mandela'd to a different timeline where they have switched everytime I check

vxo

@misty .....whoa hold on just a minute HOW

Pffff...

@misty Same flag for two different things "in the classic UNIX style". 😬

dressupgeekout πŸ¦“

@misty This problem was solved decades ago with lowercase 'v' and uppercase 'V'...

ROTOPE~1 :yell:

@dressupgeekout @misty there are so many v's to choose from!

codesign -v -V -π˜ƒ -𝘷 -𝚟 -𝑣 -𝒗 -𝓋 -𝓿 -𝕧 -β“₯ -πŸ…₯ -ᐯ -πŸ…… -πŸ†… -α΄  -ᐯ -βˆ‡ -α΅› -β±½ -πš… -β“‹ -𝕍 -π“₯ -𝒱 -𝑽 -𝑉 -𝐕 -𝙑 -𝘝 -𝗩

ionizedGirl

@misty what does the argparse code for this even look like

Mike P

@misty "No more confusing flags: Our new command-line interface uses AI to decide what you want to do!"

Martin SchrΓΆder

@misty This is not a typo in the man page? :blobfearful:

Misty

@oneiros Not a typo, much as I wish it was one. Note the actual descriptions - it has to outline what happens in the case of ambiguity.

Shane Celis

@misty GANDALF: -v stands alone.

EOMER: No not alone. VERBOOOOOOOSE!!!

Mike Lynch

@misty β€œin the classic Unix style”

thomastc

@misty I'm sure there's a story here, and it probably contains the words "backwards compatibility" and possibly also "oops".

DELETED

@misty

what.

(though I must say that saying "in the classic UNIX style" in the same manpage as, uh, that is pretty close to peak chutzpah.)

spv :verified:

@misty WHY TH EFUCK ISN'T VERIFY A COMMAND INSTEAD

edit: that was a typo but i feel like it fits so imma just roll with it

Misty

@adr There absolutely has to be a story behind this one

Nep (Travis) Smith

@misty @adr well, on the dev team, Victor wanted to use -v and Veronica wanted to use -v, so they compromised.

Matthew Murray πŸ¦‡

@adr @misty
Clearly one of those is meant to be "–v" (using an en dash). Not to be confused with "β€’v" (a figure dash) or "βˆ’v" (a minus sign).

Pomax

@misty I must admit, now I'm just disappointed that there isn't a third `-v` / `--version`

Raphael

@misty Nah, you're holding it wrong.

/s

Aria :pleadingcat:

@misty@digipres.club if it makes anybody here feel any better, using Remove-Item or "rm" in windows, you cant just specify "rm -rf", because -rf is unknown, and -f is BOTH -Filter and -Force

ティージェーグレェ

@misty Ooph, operator overloading?

You can always file a Feedback! </sarcasm>

I do.

On one occasion it was closed as a duplicate, two years later.

At least that one got fixed though.

Most of the time my bug reports get ignored entirely.

Hilariously the security notes for 14.6 claim they mitigated the OpenSSH RCE (I filed Feedback there and am the MacPorts OpenSSH maintainer which has been shipping 9.8p1 since several hours after upstream released it) but /usr/sbin/ssh -V reveals they are still shipping 9.7p1

Same for 14.6.1. ;(

CrApple.

@misty Ooph, operator overloading?

You can always file a Feedback! </sarcasm>

I do.

On one occasion it was closed as a duplicate, two years later.

At least that one got fixed though.

Most of the time my bug reports get ignored entirely.

Hilariously the security notes for 14.6 claim they mitigated the OpenSSH RCE (I filed Feedback there and am the MacPorts OpenSSH maintainer which has been shipping 9.8p1 since several hours after upstream released it) but /usr/sbin/ssh -V reveals they are still shipping 9.7p1

clar fon

@misty obviously, the short flag means verify verbosely, and you need to verify verbosely quietly if you don't want to verbosely verify

Brad

@misty A lot of careful co-design must have gone into that flag.

John Timaeus

@misty

This is just cursed. Of all the obscurata that I have to teach, I'm glad this isn't one of them.

Professor_Stevens

@misty

I never want to hear another computer person complain to me that lawyers deliberately make documents difficult to understand. I mean, this, this is... this is sufficiently serpentine that it can only be considered a work of the highest art.

groxx

@misty slightly off screen:
-v, --version

Misty

@groxx Sadly they missed the chance. There's no version flag

groxx

@misty there's always hope for a future version then!

Noah Bailey

@misty it can tell what you really mean by how hard you smack the β€œenter” key

Puppethead

@misty That is crazy. Why not just go full "Apple way" and eliminate the short flags, at least for the verify? The 'softwareupdate' command shows the way.

Spicy Potato

@misty @zzt I knew about this, but had pushed it out of my brain, and now that you've reminded me I'm incredibly angry. Again. Just... No.

cthululemon

@misty
Doesn’t seem right that you can even use a shortened flag to request verbosity.

πŸš€ Ⓛ β’Ά β“Š Ⓡ β’Ί Ⓝ Ⓣ πŸ›Έ πŸͺ

@misty does -v -v -v increment two times the verbosity of a signature verification ?

Asta [AMP]

@misty@digipres.club wait: the first -v encountered will be assumed to be verify, which is after verbose in the man page and come the fuck onnn

pinskia

@misty GCC has a similar issue but it is not as bad. `-v` by itself just prints the version info. but `-v` with the normal options means verbose (which also prints the version info).

david_chisnall

@misty They’re not actually the same character. Neither of them is a Latin letter v, they are both from different Unicode planes that happen to look like a v.

What? It’s not like the real explanation makes more sense!

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