Re: Some question regarding tail and option "-c"

[Philipp Thomas]

* Jim Meyering (address@hidden) [20121003 20:09]:

> I can reproduce that by specifying an older version of POSIX:
> 
>     $ : | _POSIX2_VERSION=0 tail -c 10
>     tail: cannot open '10' for reading: No such file or directory

But AFAICS both 1003.2-1992 and 1003.2-2001 define the syntax as being »-c
number« i.e, with a blank between -c and the number but for 1003.2-1992 tail
only accepts -c<number> .  With POSIX2_VERSION=199209 tail accepts »-n 10«,
so why doesn't -c accept a blank between option and number?

Philipp