On 11/11/2016 12:26 PM, Paul Eggert wrote: > Michael Schwager wrote: >> Don't you think I can see the spaces in my filenames? > > Not in general, no. For example: > > $ ls --quoting-style=literal > a b c > $ ls > 'a b' c > > That being said, perhaps 'ls' could quote less aggressively. If 'ls' > always arranges for at least two spaces between file names, for example, > 'ls' doesn't need to quote a name merely because it contains a space > surrounded by non-whitespace characters. Come to think of it, 'ls -l' > need not quote file names containing spaces at all.
If the idea is that the quoting is there to make copy-and-pasting into a shell command line easier, then there is nothing we can do that is less aggressive, since failing to quote spaces changes what the shell will do. If the idea is that the quoting should only be added to avoid ambiguous situations, then maybe you are right that we can add further heuristics to the quoting algorithm to disable quotes on output that is unambiguous, even if it can't be pasted back into the shell. Having two different quoting modes, where you can choose between the options, may be the way to go - but then you STILL have the problem of what to pick as the default of those two modes when neither one was explicitly requested. -- Eric Blake eblake redhat com +1-919-301-3266 Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
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