Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:06:21 +0200 From: Jonathan McKeown <j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, rick-freebsd2008@kiwi-computer.com Subject: Re: Deprecating ps(1)s -w switch Message-ID: <200908260906.21411.j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> In-Reply-To: <20090825205143.GA46753@keira.kiwi-computer.com> References: <20090825034054.2d57e733@dev.lan.Awfulhak.org> <200908251609.09302.j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> <20090825205143.GA46753@keira.kiwi-computer.com>
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On Tuesday 25 August 2009 22:51:43 Rick C. Petty wrote: > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 04:09:09PM +0200, Jonathan McKeown wrote: > > I usually want to see ps(1) output in easily-read columns. Without width > > limits, this can't be guaranteed. > > > > I would strongly object to the complete removal of any option to limit > > the output width of ps(1) and make it easily human-readable. > > > > I'm also astonished at the suggestion that not using -ww is ``a > > mistake''. I very seldom need to see the whole commandline for every > > process. > > Then you must not use Java much. I almost always need the -ww option. > I'm fine with the default being "fit into my terminal width", but I'd be > for one option to specify limited width and another option (-w) to > specify "as wide as possible". As it happens, you're right: I don't use Java at all. Neither do I object=20 (much) to a change in the default behaviour such that wide output is the no= rm=20 and restricted-width an option. In the original message, Brian Somers wrote: > The suggestion is that ps's -w switch is a strange artifact that can > be safely deprecated. =A0ps goes to great lengths to implement width > limitations, and any time I've seen people not using -ww has either > been a mistake or doesn't matter. =A0Using 'cut -c1-N' is also a great > way of limiting widths if people really want that... > > I'd like to propose changing ps so that width limits are removed and > '-w' is deprecated - ignored for now with a note in the man page > saying that it will be removed in a future release. The suggestion seems to be to remove the width-limiting code altogether, an= d=20 make people who want width-restricted output (for example to keep it in=20 columns which are easily scanned by eye) pipe the output through another=20 command. That I do object to.
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