This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
Contents
Application Usage
Since the val exit status sets the 0x80 bit, shell applications checking "$?" cannot tell if it
terminated due to a missing file argument or receipt of a signal.
Asynchronous Events
Default.
Consequences Of Errors
Default.
Thefollowingsectionsareinformative.Copyright
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard
for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document.
The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced
during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2017 VAL(1POSIX)
Description
The val utility shall determine whether the specified file is an SCCS file meeting the characteristics
specified by the options.
Environment Variables
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of val:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the
Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section8.2, InternationalizationVariables for the
precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale
categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization
variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters
(for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic
messages written to standard error, and informative messages written to standard output.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.
Examples
In a directory with three SCCS files—s.x (of t type ``text''), s.y, and s.z (a corrupted file)—the
following command could produce the output shown:
val - <<EOF
-y source s.x
-m y s.y
s.z
EOF
-y source s.x
s.x: %Y%, -y mismatch
s.z
s.z: corrupted SCCS file
Exit Status
The 8-bit code returned by val shall be a disjunction of the possible errors; that is, it can be
interpreted as a bit string where set bits are interpreted as follows:
0x80 = Missing file argument.
0x40 = Unknown or duplicate option.
0x20 = Corrupted SCCS file.
0x10 = Cannot open file or file not SCCS.
0x08 = SID is invalid or ambiguous.
0x04 = SID does not exist.
0x02 = %Y%, -y mismatch.
0x01 = %M%, -m mismatch.
Note that val can process two or more files on a given command line and can process multiple command
lines (when reading the standard input). In these cases an aggregate code shall be returned: a logical OR
of the codes generated for each command line and file processed.
Extended Description
None.
Future Directions
None.
Input Files
Any SCCS files processed shall be files of an unspecified format.
Name
val — validate SCCS files (DEVELOPMENT)
Operands
The following operands shall be supported:
file A pathname of an existing SCCS file. If exactly one file operand appears, and it is '-', the
standard input shall be read: each line shall be independently processed as if it were a
command line argument list. (However, the line is not subjected to any of the shell word
expansions, such as parameter expansion or quote removal.)
Options
The val utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section12.2, UtilitySyntaxGuidelines, except that the usage of the '-' operand is not strictly as intended by the guidelines
(that is, reading options and operands from standard input).
The following options shall be supported:
-mname Specify a name, which is compared with the SCCS %M% keyword in file; see get.
-rSID Specify a SID (SCCS Identification String), an SCCS delta number. A check shall be made to
determine whether the SID is ambiguous (for example, -r1 is ambiguous because it physically
does not exist but implies 1.1, 1.2, and so on, which may exist) or invalid (for example,
-r1.0 or -r1.1.0 are invalid because neither case can exist as a valid delta number). If the
SID is valid and not ambiguous, a check shall be made to determine whether it actually exists.
-s Silence the diagnostic message normally written to standard output for any error that is
detected while processing each named file on a given command line.
-ytype Specify a type, which shall be compared with the SCCS %Y% keyword in file; see get.
Output Files
None.
Prolog
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface
may not be implemented on Linux.
Rationale
None.
See Also
admin, delta, get, prs
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter8, EnvironmentVariables, Section12.2, UtilitySyntaxGuidelinesStderr
Not used.
Stdin
The standard input shall be a text file used only when the file operand is specified as '-'.
Stdout
The standard output shall consist of informative messages about either:
1. Each file processed
2. Each command line read from standard input
If the standard input is not used, for each file operand yielding a discrepancy, the output line shall
have the following format:
"%s: %s\n", <pathname>, <unspecifiedstring>
If the standard input is used, for each input line yielding a discrepancy, the output shall have the
following format:
"%s\n\n %s: %s\n", <input>, <pathname>, <unspecifiedstring>
where <input> is the input line minus its terminating <newline>.
Synopsis
val -
val [-s][-m name][-r SID][-y type]file...
