GNU bug report logs - #69261
'ls' : --ignore does not apply on FILEs selection

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

From: Mathias MICHEL <matm <at> gmx.fr>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: 'ls' : --ignore does not apply on FILEs selection
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2024 22:07:39 +0000

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

Hello,
Is it expected that --ignore arg does not apply on globbed FILE ?
My goal is to avoid using grep or complex find args:
> ~/.ssh :: ls id_ed* | grep -v
"\.pub$"id_ed25519id_ed25519.localid_ed25519_ori
> ~/.ssh:: find . '!' -name '*.pub' -name
"id_ed*"./id_ed25519_ori./id_ed25519.local./id_ed25519
I tried -I (--ignore) and --hide :
> ~/.ssh:: ls -I"*.pub" id_ed*     id_ed25519  id_ed25519.local
 id_ed25519.local.pub  id_ed25519_ori
 id_ed25519_ori.pub    id_ed25519.pub> ~/.ssh:: ls --hide "*.pub"
id_ed*    id_ed25519  id_ed25519.local  id_ed25519.local.pub
 id_ed25519_ori  id_ed25519_ori.pub    id_ed25519.pub
Since help text says for both options is : do not list implied entries
matching shell PATTERN
I would expect it to occur after building the initial listing.
When I remove the globbing pattern, it seems to work as expected:
~/.ssh:: ls -I "*.pub" ./config    id_ed25519  id_ed25519.local
 id_ed25519_ori  id_rsa.local  known_hosts  known_hosts.old~/.ssh:: ls
-I "*.pub"config    id_ed25519  id_ed25519.local  id_ed25519_ori
 id_rsa.local  known_hosts  known_hosts.old
Man page says nothing about conflicts with file globbing. My view is
obviously that this is a miss, what are yours ?
Thanks for your feedback--
Mathias M

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Message #10 received at 69261-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Mathias MICHEL <matm <at> gmx.fr>
Cc: 69261-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#69261: 'ls' : --ignore does not apply on FILEs selection
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2024 22:45:00 -0800

On 2024-02-18 14:07, Mathias MICHEL via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:

> Is it expected that --ignore arg does not apply on globbed FILE ?

Yes. --ignore is about what 'ls' finds in directories, not about 
command-line arguments.

> My goal is to avoid using grep or complex find args:
>> > ~/.ssh :: ls id_ed* | grep -v "\.pub$" > id_ed25519 id_ed25519.local id_ed25519_ori

Try this:

  ls --hide='[^i]*' --hide='i[^d]*' --hide='id[^_]*' --hide='id_[^e]*' 
--hide='id_e[^d]*' --hide='*.pub'

Admittedly ugly, but does the job.

Message #13 received at 69261 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mathias MICHEL <matm <at> gmx.fr>
To: 69261 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Further discussion on option processing
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 20:33:28 +0000

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

Paul Eggert said:
> Yes. --ignore is about what 'ls' finds in directories, not about
command-line arguments.
 
So my command should work, IMO:
ls --hide "*.pub" id_ed*  
 
id_ed* would expand to all files starting with id_ed
ls will stat them and get their name
--hide should hide those matching the pattern.ls should display the
expected result of all id_ed private key files.
I don't understand why --hide is depending on whether FILEs were provided
or not to the command. This is the opposite of what Paul stated.
Best regards 
 
Mathias M

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Message #16 received at 69261 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Mathias MICHEL <matm <at> gmx.fr>
Cc: 69261 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#69261: Further discussion on option processing
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:56:17 -0800

On 2024-02-20 12:33, Mathias MICHEL via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
> I don't understand why --hide is depending on whether FILEs were provided
> or not to the command. This is the opposite of what Paul stated.

It's not the opposite of what I stated. I said that --hide affects only 
files that 'ls' finds in directories itself (e.g., via ls -R); it does 
not affect command-line arguments. That's the behavior you're observing, 
and that's the documented behavior.

As for "why", it's similar to ls's behavior with files starting with 
".". Normally ls doesn't display them, but if you give an explicit 
command-line argument (e.g., "ls -d .") it displays them, regardless of 
whether you've also specified -a or -A or whatever.

It's not likely that we'd change ls's behavior for the command-line 
arguments you gave, as it's been behaving this way for years and other 
people likely depend on this behavior. However, you can get get the 
behavior that you want by using a different set of command-line 
arguments (see my previous email), so you might try doing that.

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