GNU bug report logs -
#20442
bug+patch: du output misaligned on different terminals
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Reported by: "L. A. Walsh" <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 19:12:01 UTC
Severity: normal
Tags: wontfix
Done: Assaf Gordon <assafgordon <at> gmail.com>
Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.
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Pádraig Brady wrote: > There are backwards compatibility issues to
consider.
Could you demonstrate any where similar issues wouldn't affect output
from 'ls'
Second, I don't remember numfmt being part being part of posix, but my
solution seems to fall under POSIX:
From: Pádraig Brady
Subject: Re: du: POSIX mandating a single space instead of tab?
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:51:06 +0100
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.5.0
On 28/04/15 15:42, Eric Blake wrote:
>>> No, the space stands for any (positive) amount of white space.
>>> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap05.html#tag_05
>>> Andreas.
>>
>> Thanks for pointing that out Andreas.
>> So a ' ' in a format implies any amount of blank chars.
>
> Correct.
>
>> So we could separate the du columns with spaces rather than tab,
>
> Yes, I'd prefer that we did that. It is much easier to guarantee
> alignment when using spaces and completely avoiding whatever tab stops
> people have set up.
=====
I find myself agreeing with Eric on this issue.
Actually, I would prefer a envvar USE_TABS=[[ytfnx]] (yes true
false/no/false/no/expand) and their upper-case versions for simplicity
as defaulting to 8 space/tab -- though I could also support the absence
of 'USE_TABS' as being compatible with current functionality.
I can see the use of something like this in desktop programs tty/consoles,
editors, etc...
I would want to see standard column terminology (ala sort & cut ranging
from 1 - 80).
If the var is undefined, I think it would be _more_ _predictable_ to go go with
expanded as '8', OR with like the tty_tabs command w/no args: it shows
you the current settings. (Why doesn't 'tabs' show them?)
However -- it we agree on the env-var for tab presence/expansion and tabstop
definitions, I could also agree on leaving behaviors in current programs the
same as they are now (w/o the USE_TABS envvar).
> tabs
tabs: no tab-list given --- hmmm not too useful
> tabs 2 -- also tabs doesn't take columns but spaces of separation.
Tabstops are usually at set points like 1/2" or 1/4" or some fixed
number, so if I use tabs 2:, One might like 'tabs' to display the
current tabs: > tty_tab
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79
80
I note the tab program also supports irregular tabs:
for i in a a2 c c2 c3 f p s u;do tabs -$i tty_tab done
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 10 16 36 72 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 10 16 40 72 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 8 20 55 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 6 10 14 49 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 6 10 22 26 30 34 38 42 46 50 54 58 62 67 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 7 11 15 19 23 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 49 53 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 10 55 80
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 12 20 44 80
-----------------
I would like to see this in an ENV var so people could use it for
other utils in their session (like vim/emacs or whatever).
Some files like the /etc/fstab file really need variable tabs.
This bug report was last modified 6 years and 297 days ago.
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