From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 25 12:42:21 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31FA01065693 for ; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:42:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from shuvaev@physik.uni-wuerzburg.de) Received: from mailrelay.rz.uni-wuerzburg.de (mailrelay.rz.uni-wuerzburg.de [132.187.3.28]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A5F098FC28 for ; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:42:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: from virusscan.mail (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mailrelay.mail (Postfix) with ESMTP id 04814199A4B; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:42:16 +0200 (CEST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by virusscan.mail (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC10A199A49; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:42:15 +0200 (CEST) Received: from mail.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de (wthp192.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de [132.187.40.192]) by mailmaster.uni-wuerzburg.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id D7B83199A32; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:42:15 +0200 (CEST) Received: from wep4035 ([132.187.37.35]) by mail.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de (Lotus Domino Release 8.0.2FP1HF244) with ESMTP id 2009082514421500-2230 ; Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:42:15 +0200 Received: by wep4035 (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:42:15 +0200 Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:42:15 +0200 From: Alexey Shuvaev To: Brian Somers Message-ID: <20090825124215.GA80035@wep4035.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de> Mail-Followup-To: Brian Somers , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org, Ivan Radovanovic References: <20090825034054.2d57e733@dev.lan.Awfulhak.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20090825034054.2d57e733@dev.lan.Awfulhak.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i Organization: Universitaet Wuerzburg X-MIMETrack: Itemize by SMTP Server on domino1/uni-wuerzburg(Release 8.0.2FP1HF244 | April 7, 2009) at 08/25/2009 02:42:15 PM, Serialize by Router on domino1/uni-wuerzburg(Release 8.0.2FP1HF244 | April 7, 2009) at 08/25/2009 02:42:15 PM, Serialize complete at 08/25/2009 02:42:15 PM Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at uni-wuerzburg.de Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org, Ivan Radovanovic Subject: Re: Deprecating ps(1)s -w switch X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:42:21 -0000 On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 03:40:54AM -0700, Brian Somers wrote: > I recently closed bin/137647 and had second thoughts after Ivan (the > originator) challenged my reason for closing it. > > The suggestion is that ps's -w switch is a strange artifact that can > be safely deprecated. ps 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. Using '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. > Do you want to remove '-w' switch preserving '-ww' one? IMO this seems awkward. Also, by ignoring it for now do you mean that behavior of ps with '-w' switch would be the same as without it? I would prefer that '-w' == '-ww'. One can remove all references to multiple 'w' switches from the man page but leave ps itself insensitive to any number of 'w' switches (so '-w' == '-ww' == '-www' == ...). This also would be consistent with (for example) http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ps&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=Red+Hat+Linux%2Fi386+9&format=html > Does anyone have any objections to doing this? I don't propose > merging this back into stable/8. > 0.02$, Alexey.