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Why is prename deprecated?

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  Why is prename deprecated? Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2018-07-11 21:50 +0200
    Re: Why is prename deprecated? Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-07-11 22:20 +0200
      Re: Why is prename deprecated? Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2018-07-11 22:30 +0200

#197515 — Why is prename deprecated?

wooledg:~$ prename
Deprecated program in use: rename as shipped with the Debian perl package will be removed after the release of stretch. Please install the separate 'rename' package which will provide the same command.
Usage: rename [-v] [-n] [-f] perlexpr [filenames]

Hmm, OK, let's do what the warning says, and install the rename package:

wooledg:~$ sudo apt-get install rename
[sudo] password for wooledg: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
rename is already the newest version (0.20-4).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

Hey, what gives?  You told me to install 'rename' and it's already
installed!

Now, I don't care if it's part of the 'perl' package or part of the
'rename' package, as long as it's still installed by default (and this
seems good -- Priority: standard), and still named 'prename'.

What I DO NOT WANT is for the name 'prename' to go away.  Because then
all the programs that call prename will fail.

What I DO NOT WANT is for someone in Debian to tell me that I should be
calling 'rename' instead, because this is dangerous.  There is a different
program named 'rename' on Red Hat systems, and it has incompatible syntax
and behavior.  Calling 'prename' in a shell script is safe, because if
you run it on a Red Hat system, you get a nice friendly error message
telling you that prename isn't found, instead of some random behavior.

Calling 'rename' in a shell script is a recipe for disaster.  You can't
know what will happen.

I figured I'd better speak up now, before we have another mailx -> s-nail
disaster at buster's release.  Names of things are important.  You can't
just go changing them on a whim.

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#197516

On 2018-07-11, Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> wrote:
>
> What I DO NOT WANT is for the name 'prename' to go away.  Because then
> all the programs that call prename will fail.
>
> What I DO NOT WANT is for someone in Debian to tell me that I should be
> calling 'rename' instead, because this is dangerous.  There is a different
> program named 'rename' on Red Hat systems, and it has incompatible syntax
> and behavior.  Calling 'prename' in a shell script is safe, because if
> you run it on a Red Hat system, you get a nice friendly error message
> telling you that prename isn't found, instead of some random behavior.
>
> Calling 'rename' in a shell script is a recipe for disaster.  You can't
> know what will happen.
>
> I figured I'd better speak up now, before we have another mailx -> s-nail
> disaster at buster's release.  Names of things are important.  You can't
> just go changing them on a whim.
>

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=870472

(I guess this addresses your concern.)

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#197518

On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 08:16:45PM +0000, Curt wrote:
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=870472
> 
> (I guess this addresses your concern.)

Ah, thanks.  I looked for bug reports in 'perl' but not in 'rename'.

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