False statement about docker build's -f flag

[cristi8]

File: engine/reference/commandline/build.md

The documentation about docker build's "-f" flag mentions the following:
If a relative path is specified then it is interpreted as relative to the root of the context.
This is false and misleading. It looks like if a relative path is specified, it is searched as being relative to the current directory, not the root of the context.

An example of the correct usage is also on the same page, when it mentions that the two docker build commands do the same thing:

$ cd /home/me/myapp/some/dir/really/deep
$ docker build -f /home/me/myapp/dockerfiles/debug /home/me/myapp
$ docker build -f ../../../../dockerfiles/debug /home/me/myapp

It is visible there that the second docker build uses a relative path that is relative to the current directory, not the root of the context.

[cristi8]

This was opened more than 3 years ago. It's a simple false statement in the docs.

I even made a PR a month ago.

Why isn't this being fixed / PR merged?

[docker-robott]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue for a long time.
If the problem is still relevant, mark the issue as fresh with a /remove-lifecycle stale comment.
If not, this issue will be closed in 14 days. This helps our maintainers focus on the active issues.

Prevent issues from auto-closing with a /lifecycle frozen comment.

/lifecycle stale

[cristi8]

/remove-lifecycle stale

The documentation still needs fixing

[docker-robott]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue for a long time.
If the problem is still relevant, mark the issue as fresh with a /remove-lifecycle stale comment.
If not, this issue will be closed in 14 days. This helps our maintainers focus on the active issues.

Prevent issues from auto-closing with a /lifecycle frozen comment.

/lifecycle stale

[cristi8]

/remove-lifecycle stale

@nigelpoulton any news about this?

The documentation of docker build still needs fixing

[nigelpoulton]

@cristi8 I think this was incorrectly assigned to me. I'm not working on Docker docs.

[docker-robott]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue for a long time.
If the problem is still relevant, mark the issue as fresh with a /remove-lifecycle stale comment.
If not, this issue will be closed in 14 days. This helps our maintainers focus on the active issues.

Prevent issues from auto-closing with a /lifecycle frozen comment.

/lifecycle stale

[cristi8]

/remove-lifecycle stale

The official docker documentation is still wrong about the -f flag.

https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/build/

@nigelpoulton i see you are still assigned to this. I don't know how the issue assignments work, but how can this issue be assigned to the right person? Having the official docker build documentation be misleading about such a common flag is not that nice

[cristi8]

I can see the docs have been rewritten in the meantime and the issue is no longer present.

It's crazy how the official documentation for docker build, used by everyone, was misleading for 5 years and nobody wanted to fix it.

I guess this issue is no longer needed, except to point out the state of open source collaboration