GNU bug report logs - #51507
ls incorrectly displays single quotes

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Joel Hansen <thejoelhansen <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: ls incorrectly displays single quotes
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2021 13:32:20 -0700

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

ls is incorrectly displaying single quotes around folders with spaces in
them. This is confusing and unhelpful.

A temporary fix is to use update my ls alias with -N, on every machine I
use, everywhere.

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #8 received at 51507 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Joel Hansen <thejoelhansen <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 51507 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#51507: ls incorrectly displays single quotes
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2021 17:01:56 -0700

On 10/29/21 13:32, Joel Hansen wrote:
> ls is incorrectly displaying single quotes around folders with spaces in
> them. This is confusing and unhelpful.

Opinions evidently differ on that point. That being said, here's an 
example where the quotes help and where your suggestion of using -N 
everywhere would introduce confusion.

$ ls -lN
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eggert eggert 6 Oct 30 16:55 c -> a -> b
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eggert eggert 1 Oct 30 16:56 c -> a -> b
$ ls -l
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eggert eggert 6 Oct 30 16:55  c -> 'a -> b'
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eggert eggert 1 Oct 30 16:56 'c -> a' -> b

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