We've already seen the issue with echo(1): Before we changed it to
ignore "--", the command
$ echo --
did not work as expected. Given POSIX mandated this and makes most
sense, in the interest of consistency the other tools need to be
streamlined for that as well.
Looking at yes(1) for instance, there's no reason to skip "--" in
the argument list.
We do not have long options like GNU does and there's no reason to
tinker with that here.
The majority of tools changed are ones taking lists of arguments
or only a single one. There's no reason why dirname should "fail"
on "--". In the end, this is a valid name.
The practice of hand-holding the user was established with the GNU
coreutils. "--help" and "--version" long-options are a disgrace to
what could've been done properly with manpages.
sbase - suckless unix tools
===========================
sbase is a collection of unix tools that are inherently portable
across UNIX and UNIX-like systems.
The following tools are implemented:
'#' -> UTF-8 support, '=' -> Implicit UTF-8 support, '*' -> Finished,
'|' -> Audited, 'o' -> POSIX 2013 compliant, 'x' -> Non-POSIX,
'()' -> Petty flag
UTILITY MISSING FLAGS
------- -------------
=*|o basename .
=*|o cal .
=*|o cat .
=*|o chgrp .
=*|o chmod .
=*|o chown .
=*|x chroot .
=*|o cksum .
=*|o cmp .
#*|x cols .
#*|x col .
=*|o comm .
=*|o cp (-i)
=*|x cron .
#*|o cut .
=*|o date .
=*|o dirname .
=*|o du .
=*|o echo .
=*|o env .
#*|o expand .
#*|o expr .
=*|o false .
= find .
#*|o fold .
=* o grep .
=*|o head .
=*|x hostname .
=* o join .
=*|o kill .
=*|o link .
=*|o ln .
=*|o logger .
=*|o logname .
#* o ls (-C, -k, -m, -p, -s, -x)
=*|x md5sum .
=*|o mkdir .
=*|o mkfifo .
=*|x mktemp .
=*|o mv (-i)
=*|o nice .
#*|o nl .
=*|o nohup .
#*|o paste .
=*|x printenv .
#*|o printf .
=*|o pwd .
=*|x readlink .
=*|o renice .
=*|o rm (-i)
=*|o rmdir .
# sed .
=*|x seq .
=*|x setsid .
=*|x sha1sum .
=*|x sha256sum .
=*|x sha512sum .
=*|o sleep .
sort -d, -f, -i
=*|o split .
=*|x sponge .
#*|o strings .
=*|x sync .
=*|o tail .
=*|x tar .
=*|o tee .
=*|o test .
=*|o time .
=*|o touch .
#*|o tr .
=*|o true .
=*|o tty .
=*|o uname .
#*|o unexpand .
=*|o uniq .
=*|o unlink .
=*|o uudecode .
=*|o uuencode .
#*|o wc .
=*|o xargs (-p)
=*|x yes .
The complement of sbase is ubase[1] which is Linux-specific and
provides all the non-portable tools. Together they are intended to
form a base system similar to busybox but much smaller and suckless.
Building
--------
To build sbase, simply type make. You may have to fiddle with
config.mk depending on your system.
You can also build sbase-box, which generates a single binary
containing all the required tools. You can then symlink the
individual tools to sbase-box or run: make sbase-box-install
Ideally you will want to statically link sbase. If you are on Linux
we recommend using musl-libc[2].
Portability
-----------
sbase has been compiled on a variety of different operating systems,
including Linux, *BSD, OSX, Haiku, Solaris, SCO OpenServer and others.
Various combinations of operating systems and architectures have also
been built.
You can build sbase with gcc, clang, tcc, nwcc and pcc.
[1] http://git.suckless.org/ubase/
[2] http://www.musl-libc.org/
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