Re: [coreutils] stat and SELinux context

[Pádraig Brady]

On 01/10/10 16:49, Eric Blake wrote:
> In working on the birthtime stat support, I noticed that we documented
> that -Z has been removed, on the grounds that you can get at it with
> --format=%C (although NEWS didn't mention the replacement).
> 
> Would it make sense to patch the default stat output (with no --format)
> to automatically supply the %C line that Fedora's stat -Z has already
> been patched to provide?  That is, if coreutils is compiled with SELinux
> support, I see no reason why the context information should not be part
> of the default output.  That way, on Fedora, where you now use 'stat -Z'
> because of a distro-specific patch to override -Z being a no-op, you
> would in the future ALWAYS get %C output without having to use -Z.
> 
> Besides, now's the perfect time to change the default output to include
> %C where available, given that we're already changing it to add %w
> birthtime ;)

Marginal.

I would vote 60:40 against doing this because
of the non standard format of the context info,
and the less generic nature of SELinux info
(compared to birthtime for example).

cheers,
Pádraig.