On 11/11/10 12:04, Pádraig Brady wrote: > On 11/11/10 11:49, Jim Meyering wrote: >> Paul Eggert wrote: >> >>> On 11/10/2010 01:04 AM, Jim Meyering wrote: >>>> + /* %.X => precision defaults to 9 >>>> + %.5X => precision is 5 >>>> + %#.X => precision is determined by fstimeprec >>>> + %#.3X => precision is 3 (specified overrides "#") */ >>> >>> How about something like this instead? >>> >>> %.X => precision is 9 (until POSIX goes sub-nanosecond :-) >>> %.5X => precision is 5 >>> %.*X => precision determined by fstimeprec >>> >>> Then there's no reason for the "overrides" case. >> >> Good idea. I prefer that. > > Well the reason I chose %#.X was that it was the > standard mechanism for choosing "alternate form" > and so was backwards compat with previous stats. > I.E. on any stat "%#.X" would give the best > available precision.
An alternative perhaps that doesn't require the above override behavior and is also forwards compat, is to use %.0X rather than %.*X I.E. 0 selects the auto precision, and if you really don't want any decimal places then don't use "." at all? I don't feel strongly about any of these. I slightly prefer being forwardss compat though. I.E. that old versions of stat work with newer scripts. cheers, Pádraig.
