Subject: bug#24926: ls output has been made ugly

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2016 10:26:15 -0800

Michael Schwager wrote:
> Don't you think I can see the spaces in my filenames?

Not in general, no.  For example:

$ ls --quoting-style=literal
a  b  c
$ ls
'a  b'  c

That being said, perhaps 'ls' could quote less aggressively.  If 'ls' always 
arranges for at least two spaces between file names, for example, 'ls' doesn't 
need to quote a name merely because it contains a space surrounded by 
non-whitespace characters.  Come to think of it, 'ls -l' need not quote file 
names containing spaces at all.