From owner-freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Sat Feb 17 06:56:27 2018 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 001B6F14230 for ; Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jamie@catflap.org) Received: from mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (mailman.ysv.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::50:5]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 858D86A610 for ; Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jamie@catflap.org) Received: by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) id 46108F1422E; Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:26 +0000 (UTC) Delivered-To: arch@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33578F1422D for ; Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jamie@catflap.org) Received: from donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net (donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net [IPv6:2001:19f0:300:2185:a:dead:bad:faff]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CC24A6A60E for ; Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jamie@catflap.org) Received: from donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net (donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net [104.207.135.49]) by donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id w1H6uLO3026980; Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:21 GMT (envelope-from jamie@donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net) Received: (from jamie@localhost) by donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net (8.14.5/8.14.5/Submit) id w1H6uJh8026979; Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:19 GMT (envelope-from jamie) From: Jamie Landeg-Jones Message-Id: <201802170656.w1H6uJh8026979@donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net> Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:19 +0000 Organization: Dyslexic Fish To: mike@karels.net, Cy.Schubert@cschubert.com Cc: arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ps output line length change References: <201802170203.w1H23ZTE023044@slippy.cwsent.com> In-Reply-To: <201802170203.w1H23ZTE023044@slippy.cwsent.com> User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.4 7/29/08 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net [104.207.135.49]); Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:22 +0000 (GMT) X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.25 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2018 06:56:27 -0000 Cy Schubert wrote: > That's a tough one. Break Linux compatibility or break BSD > compatibility? > > Generally Linux users use ps -ef which we don't support and columns are > different so, Linux compatibility is... well just isn't. > > My vote is to revert and have an environment variable with defaults, > e.g., PS=--linux or something similar. I agree entirely. This change effectively changes the output data simply due to presence of a pipe. So, the output of "ps" could be somewhat different to "ps | cat".. (*) It's a total break of POLA. It's unnecessary (-ww already exists to achieve it) And I think it will actually make scripts more unreliable going forward... Which version of "ps" are we running? Do we "-ww" or not? Surely we want to remove ambiguity not add it. I know it's a weird one - I remember long long ago getting bitten by scripts that parsed "ps" getting seemingly unexplained truncation. But that's when I learnt how "ps" works, and that's when I learnt of "-ww" Now, if "ps" had never defaulted to tty-width truncation, then that would be fine, but changing how it determines to do so now would be awful, in my opinion. (*) I realise that piped output is often changed to remove control/colour attributes, and "ls" switches off column mode, but the former is a different situation, and the latter? Well, something we have to live with now, and it doesn't really affect the actual raw data that's displayed. Cheers, Jamie