GNU bug report logs - #71171
ls -U, -f: document the other half of the story too

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

From: Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: ls -U, -f: document the other half of the story too
Date: Fri, 24 May 2024 10:32:04 +0800

Man ls says:
       -U     do not sort; list entries in directory order
Please make it say:
       -U     do not sort; list entries in the order they were given on
       the command line, and files within directories using their
       directories' order

And on (info "(coreutils) Sorting the output") please change:

‘-U’
‘--sort=none’
     Do not sort; list the files in whatever order they are stored in
     the directory.  (Do not do any of the other unrelated things that
     ‘-f’ does.)  This can be useful when listing large directories,
     where sorting can take some time.

to instead say:

‘-U’
‘--sort=none’
     Do not sort; list the files in the order they were given on the
     command line, and files within directories in whatever order they
     are stored in the directory. (Do not do any of the other unrelated
     things that ‘-f’, above, does.) This can be useful when listing
     large directories, where sorting can take some time.

Proof:

$ echo $PATH | tr -s : \\n
/home/jidanni/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/games
/usr/sbin
/usr/bin
/usr/games
/sbin
/bin
$ echo $PATH | tr -s : \\n | xargs ls -Uogd
drwxr-xr-x 1   632 05-24 05:47 /home/jidanni/bin
drwxr-xr-x 1     0 04-17 12:34 /usr/local/sbin
drwxr-xr-x 1     0 04-17 12:34 /usr/local/bin
drwxr-xr-x 1     0 04-17 12:34 /usr/local/games
drwxr-xr-x 1  6028 05-23 07:42 /usr/sbin
drwxr-xr-x 1 19542 05-23 20:01 /usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x 1     0 01-29 05:20 /usr/games
lrwxrwxrwx 1     8 04-17 12:34 /sbin -> usr/sbin
lrwxrwxrwx 1     7 04-17 12:34 /bin -> usr/bin

Above, -U thankfully allows me to keep the output in the order I gave it!

Wait,
man ls:
     -f     list all entries in directory order

Same problems all over again with -f documentation.

So please also update the man ls and Info ls "-f" discussions to include
the command line order, as I did above for -U. Thanks.

ls (GNU coreutils) 9.4

Message #10 received at 71171-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Cc: 71171-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#71171: ls -U, -f: document the other half of the story too
Date: Fri, 24 May 2024 08:49:04 -0700

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

Thanks, I installed the attached. This doesn't exactly match your 
suggestion (as ls --help shouldn't be that chatty) but should address 
the issues you raised. Some of those issues had already been fixed in 
the development branch.

[0001-ls-improve-sorting-doc.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

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