that old GNU/Linux argument

[Björn Persson]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> The only GNU-specific features that come to the top of my head are the
> -a option to cp (and I usually use rsync anyway where it would be
> useful) and the copious non-standard options to gnutar that sometimes
> turn out to be useful.  Are there others that really matter?  It would
> be nice to have a list to avoid in portable code and scripts.

We program in C (unfortunately). All Unix-like systems have their own 
additions to the "standard" C library, and so does the GNU C library. Most 
GNU tools also tend to have GNU-specific features:
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/echo.msg.html
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gcc.html

I don't have a list. For GlibC the man pages are good at explaining which 
functions and behaviors are GNU extensions. At least some of the command line 
tools' manuals do that too. I don't know if all of them do.

Björn Persson