Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:30:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net> To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: bin/54784: find -ls wastes space Message-ID: <200307231630.h6NGUDwT031273@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR bin/54784; it has been noted by GNATS. From: Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net> To: Andy Farkas <andyf@speednet.com.au> Cc: bug-followup@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: bin/54784: find -ls wastes space Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:23:42 +0300 On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 02:12:30AM +1000, Andy Farkas wrote: > On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Peter Pentchev wrote: >=20 > > Would this not break existing scripts, which rely on the current > > fixed formatting? >=20 > You think? Most scripts would use spaces as a field seperator, so reducing > the number of spaces shouldn't affect them. In the past, people have objected strongly to changing the output of ps(1) for exactly this reason. IMHO, there are several reasons not to rely on whitespace in parsing the output of ls(1) or find(1); for a trivial, though somewhat rare, example, consider whitespace in the localized representation of date and time. Other than that, there might be the human problem of comparing the output of 'find' run on different machines with different usernames, or even on the same machine, different directories owned by different users; the columns, and sometimes line continuations, would be all out of whack. G'luck, Peter --=20 Peter Pentchev roam@ringlet.net roam@sbnd.net roam@FreeBSD.org PGP key: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc Key fingerprint FDBA FD79 C26F 3C51 C95E DF9E ED18 B68D 1619 4553 I am not the subject of this sentence.
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