Error in documentation of $ORIGIN in the ld.so man page

Error in documentation of $ORIGIN in the ld.so man page

[Siddhesh Poyarekar]

Hi Michael,

The ld.so man page says:

       $ORIGIN (or equivalently ${ORIGIN})
              This expands to the directory containing the application
executable.  Thus, an application located in somedir/app could be
compiled with

which is incorrect since it expands to the directory containing the
DSO and not the application executable.  This seems like deliberate
behaviour in dl-object.c, so it needs to be fixed in the man page.
Credit goes to Jon Wakely for finding this[1].

Thanks,
Siddhesh

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26280738/what-is-the-equivalent-of-loader-path-for-rpath-specification-on-linux/26281226#26281226

-- 
http://siddhesh.in

Re: Error in documentation of $ORIGIN in the ld.so man page

[Jonathan Wakely]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 612 bytes --]

On 09/10/14 23:18 +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
>Hi Michael,
>
>The ld.so man page says:
>
>       $ORIGIN (or equivalently ${ORIGIN})
>              This expands to the directory containing the application
>executable.  Thus, an application located in somedir/app could be
>compiled with
>
>which is incorrect since it expands to the directory containing the
>DSO and not the application executable.  This seems like deliberate
>behaviour in dl-object.c, so it needs to be fixed in the man page.
>Credit goes to Jon Wakely for finding this[1].

Thanks, Siddhesh, I was just preparing this suggested patch.



[-- Attachment #2: patch.txt --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 452 bytes --]

diff --git a/man8/ld.so.8 b/man8/ld.so.8
index a5a7293..ac02df6 100644
--- a/man8/ld.so.8
+++ b/man8/ld.so.8
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ understands certain strings in an rpath specification (DT_RPATH or DT_RUNPATH);
 .TP
 .IR $ORIGIN " (or equivalently " ${ORIGIN} )
 This expands to
-the directory containing the application executable.
+the directory containing the program or library.
 Thus, an application located in
 .I somedir/app
 could be compiled with

Re: Error in documentation of $ORIGIN in the ld.so man page

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

Hello Jonathan and Siddesh,

Thanks for the patch and the report. 

I applied the patch. One question, below.

On 10/09/2014 08:19 PM, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
> On 09/10/14 23:18 +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> The ld.so man page says:
>>
>>       $ORIGIN (or equivalently ${ORIGIN})
>>              This expands to the directory containing the application
>> executable.  Thus, an application located in somedir/app could be
>> compiled with
>>
>> which is incorrect since it expands to the directory containing the
>> DSO and not the application executable.  This seems like deliberate
>> behaviour in dl-object.c, so it needs to be fixed in the man page.
>> Credit goes to Jon Wakely for finding this[1].
> 
> Thanks, Siddhesh, I was just preparing this suggested patch.
> 
> 
> > diff --git a/man8/ld.so.8 b/man8/ld.so.8
> index a5a7293..ac02df6 100644
> --- a/man8/ld.so.8
> +++ b/man8/ld.so.8
> @@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ understands certain strings in an rpath specification (DT_RPATH or DT_RUNPATH);
>  .TP
>  .IR $ORIGIN " (or equivalently " ${ORIGIN} )
>  This expands to
> -the directory containing the application executable.
> +the directory containing the program or library.

I made this "...program or shared library". Okay?

Thanks,

Michael


>  Thus, an application located in
>  .I somedir/app
>  could be compiled with

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/

Re: Error in documentation of $ORIGIN in the ld.so man page

[Jonathan Wakely]

On 28/10/14 14:46 +0100, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
>Hello Jonathan and Siddesh,
>
>Thanks for the patch and the report.
>
>I applied the patch. One question, below.
>
>On 10/09/2014 08:19 PM, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
>> On 09/10/14 23:18 +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
>>> Hi Michael,
>>>
>>> The ld.so man page says:
>>>
>>>       $ORIGIN (or equivalently ${ORIGIN})
>>>              This expands to the directory containing the application
>>> executable.  Thus, an application located in somedir/app could be
>>> compiled with
>>>
>>> which is incorrect since it expands to the directory containing the
>>> DSO and not the application executable.  This seems like deliberate
>>> behaviour in dl-object.c, so it needs to be fixed in the man page.
>>> Credit goes to Jon Wakely for finding this[1].
>>
>> Thanks, Siddhesh, I was just preparing this suggested patch.
>>
>>
>> > diff --git a/man8/ld.so.8 b/man8/ld.so.8
>> index a5a7293..ac02df6 100644
>> --- a/man8/ld.so.8
>> +++ b/man8/ld.so.8
>> @@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ understands certain strings in an rpath specification (DT_RPATH or DT_RUNPATH);
>>  .TP
>>  .IR $ORIGIN " (or equivalently " ${ORIGIN} )
>>  This expands to
>> -the directory containing the application executable.
>> +the directory containing the program or library.
>
>I made this "...program or shared library". Okay?

Yes, I think that's an improvement.

I used "program or library" to match the first line of the SYNOPSIS
which uses the same wording, but there it says "some dynamically
linked program or library" which makes it clear it refers to
shared libraries. Your change makes the same thing clear in the
description of $ORIGIN.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Re: Error in documentation of $ORIGIN in the ld.so man page

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Jonathan Wakely <jwakely@redhat.com> wrote:
> On 28/10/14 14:46 +0100, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
>>
>> Hello Jonathan and Siddesh,
>>
>> Thanks for the patch and the report.
>>
>> I applied the patch. One question, below.
>>
>> On 10/09/2014 08:19 PM, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
>>>
>>> On 09/10/14 23:18 +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>
>>>> The ld.so man page says:
>>>>
>>>>       $ORIGIN (or equivalently ${ORIGIN})
>>>>              This expands to the directory containing the application
>>>> executable.  Thus, an application located in somedir/app could be
>>>> compiled with
>>>>
>>>> which is incorrect since it expands to the directory containing the
>>>> DSO and not the application executable.  This seems like deliberate
>>>> behaviour in dl-object.c, so it needs to be fixed in the man page.
>>>> Credit goes to Jon Wakely for finding this[1].
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks, Siddhesh, I was just preparing this suggested patch.
>>>
>>>
>>> > diff --git a/man8/ld.so.8 b/man8/ld.so.8
>>> index a5a7293..ac02df6 100644
>>> --- a/man8/ld.so.8
>>> +++ b/man8/ld.so.8
>>> @@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ understands certain strings in an rpath specification
>>> (DT_RPATH or DT_RUNPATH);
>>>  .TP
>>>  .IR $ORIGIN " (or equivalently " ${ORIGIN} )
>>>  This expands to
>>> -the directory containing the application executable.
>>> +the directory containing the program or library.
>>
>>
>> I made this "...program or shared library". Okay?
>
>
> Yes, I think that's an improvement.
>
> I used "program or library" to match the first line of the SYNOPSIS
> which uses the same wording, but there it says "some dynamically
> linked program or library" which makes it clear it refers to
> shared libraries. Your change makes the same thing clear in the
> description of $ORIGIN.
>

Thanks, Jonathan.

Cheers,

Michael



-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/