GNU bug report logs - #69807
questioning automatic -i in multicolumn pr

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy <at> dartmouth.edu>

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 05:10:02 UTC

Severity: normal

Done: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

Full log

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

From: Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy <at> dartmouth.edu>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: questioning automatic -i in multicolumn pr
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:31:34 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Multicolumn options in pr imply option -i (tabification). The introduction
of tabs with physical rather than logical meaning makes output that is OK
for viewing only if you have correct tab stops, and is complicated for
further processing.  It caters for obsolete equipment--typewriters, on
which tabbing was appreciably faster than spacing.

As a wish-list item I propose abolishing implicit tabification. A second
choice (that doesn't buck Posix) is to provide an option to suppress
implicit tabification. At a bare minimum, document a workaround for the
inconvenient tabs, e.g. post-processing with pr -t -e.

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]
This bug report was last modified 1 year and 61 days ago.

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