"Jordan Russell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > -rw-r--r-- 1 123 456 5 Apr 10 18:15 test > > (Quick! What's the size of that file?)
Isn't there a similar problem with the old format? -rw-r--r-- 1 123 456 5 Apr 11 20:42 test I'd guess that someone who's not familiar with the columns will be just as confused with the old spacing as with the new. And if you look at more-typical output of "ls -ln" with the new spacing: -rw-r--r-- 1 1000 1000 18275 2004-04-07 22:02 diff drwxrwxrwt 2 1000 1000 4096 2004-04-08 11:03 .esd drwxrwxrwt 2 0 0 4096 2004-04-07 11:21 .font-unix -rw-r--r-- 1 1000 1000 0 2004-04-07 21:37 foox srw-rw-rw- 1 0 0 0 2004-04-07 11:21 .gdm_socket drwxrwxrwt 2 0 0 4096 2004-04-09 01:18 .ICE-unix -rw-r--r-- 1 1000 1000 381 2004-04-08 13:18 motd it's fairly clear which column is the size, and which columns are the uid/gids (or at least, it's as clear as it used to be....). > I guess I fail to see what the "downside" is here. The downside is that "ls -l" format runs out of columns too quickly. Many people look at it in 80 (or even 79) column windows. If we replace this: drwxrwxrwt 13 root root 8192 2004-04-11 20:42 . drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 2004-03-10 13:07 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 eggert eggert 5654447 2004-04-07 22:06 tar.bz2 -rw------- 1 eggert eggert 320296 2004-04-07 12:58 wu-ftpd-2.6.1-18a.src.rpm with this: drwxrwxrwt 13 root root 8192 2004-04-11 20:42 . drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 2004-03-10 13:07 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 eggert eggert 5654447 2004-04-07 22:06 tar.bz2 -rw------- 1 eggert eggert 320296 2004-04-07 12:58 wu-ftpd-2.6.1-18a.src.rpm then more listings will stop fitting and will become harder to read in many environments. It's not clear to me that the extra spaces after "eggert" add enough to readability to be worth the cost; and if they are worth it there, then shouldn't spaces be added elsewhere as well? Anyway, I think Jim's suggestion of adding a general-purpose format argument is the right way to go in the long run. _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
