Re: [PATCH] lscpu : -b and -c option does not give expected output.

[Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>]

On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 11:00:32AM +0530, faizan husain wrote:
> On Monday 06 August 2012 05:20 PM, Heiko Carstens wrote:
> >On Sun, Aug 05, 2012 at 10:10:52PM -0700, Faizan husain wrote:
> >>From: faizan husain <faizanh@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> >>
> >>Options for lscpu command are giving incorrect output.
> >>As per the man page or help, '-b' option should limit the output to online CPUs
> >>and '-c' option should limit the output to offline CPUs.
> >>But we could see the output is same for '-a','-b' and '-c' options.
> >>
> >>Signed-off-by: faizan husain <faizanh@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> >The -a, -b and -c options were meant to influence the output for the
> >extended (-e) and parsable (-p) output options.
> >I'm not sure it makes sense to change the default output with these
> >options. I'd prefer an update of the man page.
> >
> >Hm?
> This fix is not going to influence the default output with these
> options (-e and -p),

Yes, I'm aware of that.

> and it does not make any sense if -a, -b and -c option print same output.

Just to make sure we talk about the same things:

extended output: -e option
parsable output: -p option
default output : no -e or -p option specified

What I tried to say above was that the -a, -b and -c modifiers were
only added to influence the output for the extended and parsable
options.
If you have a system with a lot of cpus the output can be significantly
different for the extended and parsable options if you specify any of the
modifiers.

The default output (no -e or -p) however is intended to give an overview
of the complete system.

So from a usability point of view: why would a user want to exclude the
line which contains the online list of cpus for the default output?

>From my point of view the correct "fix" would be to change the lscpu man
page in order to document that the -a, -b and -c modifiers only influence
the output for the extended and parsable options.