doc: clarify that df now generally processes special files correctly

Since v8.21-172-g33660b4, df not only treats symbolic link arguments
differently, as stated there, but now generally processes special file
arguments in a non-canonicalized form correctly:

  $ cd /dev && df-old sdb
  Filesystem     1K-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
  devtmpfs         1014572    48   1014524   1% /dev

  $ cd /dev && df-new sdb
  Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
  /dev/sdb        10190136 6039532   3609932  63% /home

Document df's new behavior.

* doc/coreutils.texi (df invocation): In the paragraph describing
df's behavior regarding special file arguments, relax the condition
for such special files from "... is an absolute name of ..." to
"... resolves to ...".
* NEWS (Bug fixes): Mention the new behavior also here.

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index e0cd5400c879b1672112055e05ace443e69ee845..529c54b7d2cd288f6bff13d20e79bbd973b1c026 100644 (file)
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -8,8 +8,9 @@ GNU coreutils NEWS                                    -*- outline -*-
   mount points.  Previously it may have failed to output some mount points.
   [bug introduced in coreutils-8.21]
 
-  df now processes symbolic links to disk device nodes correctly.  Previously
-  df displayed the symlink's device rather than that for the device node.
+  df now processes symbolic links and relative paths to special files containing
+  a mounted file system correctly.  Previously df displayed the statistics about
+  the file system the file is stored on rather than the one inside.
   [This bug was present in "the beginning".]
 
   df now processes disk device nodes correctly in the presence of bind mounts.

diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index c818a1e207fb8ce68a9e44dee851a8b3cb3e3157..74d50255261f30f5eb254b3819ec928f6a06c4fb 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -11108,7 +11108,7 @@ not shown per default when already the real root device has been mounted.
 
 @cindex disk device file
 @cindex device file, disk
-If an argument @var{file} is an absolute name of a disk device node containing
+If an argument @var{file} resolves to a special file containing
 a mounted file system, @command{df} shows the space available on that
 file system rather than on the file system containing the device node.
 GNU @command{df} does not attempt to determine the disk usage