GNU bug report logs - #24926
ls-quotes: ls output has been made ugly

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From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>, Michael Schwager <mike <at> schwager.com>
Cc: 24926 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#24926: ls output has been made ugly
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2016 01:20:38 +0000

On 12/11/16 00:24, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Michael Schwager wrote:
>> please illustrate a real life problem
> 
> In general, file names can be chosen by an adversary. This is a real-life 
> problem for me, and for many other people (whether they know it or not).
> 
> Eric Blake's arguments for leaving things alone are cogent ones.
> 
> You can try to track down the design discussion by doing a git blame and looking 
> for something on the mailing list around the time the changes were installed.
> 
> Also, this may not be obvious, but you can avoid the ugliest part of the quoting 
> by using the proper English-language character in your song titles. For example:
> 
> $ ls
> Groovin’  'Higher Ground'  UB40
> 
> This works because ’ (U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK), the ordinary 
> character to use in the English-language title “Groovin’”, is not subject to the 
> off-putting replacement by '\'' (also, this character avoids other problems when 
> cutting and pasting into the shell). This would be better than what you have 
> now. Perhaps a suggestion along these lines should be put into the coreutils manual?

Note v8.26 will simplify the quoting when just traditional single quotes are present
by using double quotes like: "Groovin'"

BTW \u2019 might not be the best choice, as I tweeted recently
(with corresponding quotes in each example):

  It's awkward for file names to use shell quote
  It’s awkward for word regex to use right quote
  Itʼs best to use apostrophe modifier (\u02BC)

cheers,
Pádraig.

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