Allow to use a file named - as INPUT about age HOT 7 OPEN

You can probably use ./-.

from age.

That works indeed. Thanks for the hint!

However, the initial ambiguity described here still makes it rather difficult to script age in a way that I (or rather the user of my script) can throw any valid filename at it with me being sure that it will be indeed interpreted as a file.

Now I have to manually check whether the INPUT argument is - and replace it with ./-

Also, the same basic issue also applies to the --recipients-file option too.

from age.

You can do realpath -- - to get the absolute path of the file on the VFS tree, so that the leading characters must be /. Ambiguity removed.

from age.

For additional context, originally (during early development) age did treat - as a filename. This behaviour was changed in response to a user request for age to follow the general Linux CLI app convention of interpreting - in filename positions as a marker for stdin or stdout: #143.

from age.

I don't think you can have your cake and eat it too. Making - be an alias for STDIN/STDOUT as is convention in many *nix tools precludes it working as an actual filename without escaping. This isn't just an issue with age, and the usual workarounds apply. I think the current behavior is expected and would not want to see it change.

This is even potentially a security issue. Given that - is supposed to be STDIN, if the logic were to change and a local file were to be preferred over the stream, potentially a script using age could be tricked into using a different input than what the script author intended.

from age.

Many other tools which accept filenames, accept those only at the end of the argument list. Then, they allow to add a separate -- argument to mark everything following it to be an actual real filename. This can be used to e.g. delete a file named -f with rm -- -f.

Because of this convention, I proposed that age may understand this -- separator to mark everything that follows as a filename rather than any further options. This would then neatly solve the issue with other potential input filenames, such as --armor --passphrase or others.

Interestingly, age currently seems to accept the -- separator there currently, but chooses to ignore it.

As for using the "inline marker" - in places where paths are generally expected (such as with --recipient-file or --identity), this seems like a general anti-pattern to me since it makes it harder to predictably use age with arbitrary filenames (and avoid it hanging waiting for input that may never arrive). I would have rather loved for these options to have separate names (such as --read-recipients, --read-identity, ...), but I guess that ship has sailed...

from age.