Jan Schaumann <jscha...@netmeister.org> wrote: > Valery Ushakov <u...@stderr.spb.ru> wrote: > > > I'd say -1 is the option for "the output is meant to read > > programmatically" and it's antonym is -C for "the output for human > > consumption". If ls outputs to a pipe it infers -1 automatically > > unless -C is specified (cf. "command ls | more"). The total is "for > > human consumption" (phrased as "the output is to a terminal"), so when > > you specify -1 you turn that off. > > Yeah, that's certainly a possible interpretation. In > that case, though, the manual page should say so.
I've just updated the manual page accordingly. As an aside, GNU ls(1) prints "total" with '-s1'; FreeBSD ls(1) does not; macOS ls(1) prints "total" with '-1' as well as when not writing to a terminal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -Jan
