I'm honored and pleased to be the person who gets to complete
ls. This
project, begun around when I was born, was slow to turn into anything more
than a simple
for loop over a dirent. It really took off in the mid and
late 80's, when Richard Stallman added numerous features, and the growth
has been steady ever since. But, a glance at the man page shows that
ls has never quite been complete. It fell to me to finish the job, and
I have produced several handy patches to this end:
The only obvious lack now is a -z option, which should make output
filenames be NULL terminated for consuption by other programs.
I think this would be easy to write, but I've been extermely busy IRL
(moving lots of furniture) and didn't get to it. Any takers to write it?
Due to the nature of these patches, they conflict with each other.
Here's a combined patch suitable to be applied and tested.
diff -ur orig/coreutils-8.13/src/ls.c coreutils-8.13/src/ls.c
--- orig/coreutils-8.13/src/ls.c 2011-07-28 06:38:27.000000000 -0400
+++ coreutils-8.13/src/ls.c 2012-04-01 12:41:56.835106346 -0400
@@ -270,6 +270,7 @@
static int format_group_width (gid_t g);
static void print_long_format (const struct fileinfo *f);
static void print_many_per_line (void);
+static void print_jam (void);
static size_t print_name_with_quoting (const struct fileinfo *f,
bool symlink_target,
struct obstack *stack,
@@ -382,6 +383,7 @@
many_per_line for just names, many per line, sorted vertically.
horizontal for just names, many per line, sorted horizontally.
with_commas for just names, many per line, separated by commas.
+ jam to fit in the most information possible.
-l (and other options that imply -l), -1, -C, -x and -m control
this parameter. */
@@ -392,7 +394,8 @@
one_per_line, /* -1 */
many_per_line, /* -C */
horizontal, /* -x */
- with_commas /* -m */
+ with_commas, /* -m */
+ jam /* -j */
;
static enum format format;
@@ -630,6 +633,11 @@
static bool immediate_dirs;
+/* True means when multiple directories are being displayed, combine
+ * their contents as if all in one directory. -e */
+
+static bool entangle_dirs;
+
/* True means that directories are grouped before files. */
static bool directories_first;
@@ -705,6 +713,10 @@
static bool format_needs_type;
+/* Answer "yes" to all prompts. */
+
+static bool yes;
+
/* An arbitrary limit on the number of bytes in a printed time stamp.
This is set to a relatively small value to avoid the need to worry
about denial-of-service attacks on servers that run "ls" on behalf
@@ -804,6 +816,7 @@
"escape", no_argument, NULL, 'b' ,
"directory", no_argument, NULL, 'd' ,
"dired", no_argument, NULL, 'D' ,
+ "entangle", no_argument, NULL, 'e' ,
"full-time", no_argument, NULL, FULL_TIME_OPTION ,
"group-directories-first", no_argument, NULL,
GROUP_DIRECTORIES_FIRST_OPTION ,
@@ -849,12 +862,12 @@
static char const *const format_args[] =
"verbose", "long", "commas", "horizontal", "across",
- "vertical", "single-column", NULL
+ "vertical", "single-column", "jam", NULL
;
static enum format const format_types[] =
long_format, long_format, with_commas, horizontal, horizontal,
- many_per_line, one_per_line
+ many_per_line, one_per_line, jam
;
ARGMATCH_VERIFY (format_args, format_types);
@@ -1448,6 +1461,9 @@
print_dir_name = true;
+ if (entangle_dirs)
+ print_current_files ();
+
if (print_with_color)
int j;
@@ -1559,6 +1575,7 @@
print_block_size = false;
indicator_style = none;
print_inode = false;
+ yes = false;
dereference = DEREF_UNDEFINED;
recursive = false;
immediate_dirs = false;
@@ -1644,7 +1661,7 @@
int oi = -1;
int c = getopt_long (argc, argv,
- "abcdfghiklmnopqrstuvw:xABCDFGHI:LNQRST:UXZ1",
+ "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw:xyABCDFGHI:LNQRST:UXZ1",
long_options, &oi);
if (c == -1)
break;
@@ -1667,6 +1684,10 @@
immediate_dirs = true;
break;
+ case 'e':
+ entangle_dirs = true;
+ break;
+
case 'f':
/* Same as enabling -a -U and disabling -l -s. */
ignore_mode = IGNORE_MINIMAL;
@@ -1697,6 +1718,10 @@
print_inode = true;
break;
+ case 'j':
+ format = jam;
+ break;
+
case 'k':
human_output_opts = 0;
file_output_block_size = output_block_size = 1024;
@@ -1765,6 +1790,10 @@
format = horizontal;
break;
+ case 'y':
+ yes = true;
+ break;
+
case 'A':
if (ignore_mode == IGNORE_DEFAULT)
ignore_mode = IGNORE_DOT_AND_DOTDOT;
@@ -2510,7 +2539,7 @@
DEV_INO_PUSH (dir_stat.st_dev, dir_stat.st_ino);
- if (recursive print_dir_name)
+ if ((recursive print_dir_name) && ! entangle_dirs)
if (!first)
DIRED_PUTCHAR ('\n');
@@ -2526,7 +2555,8 @@
/* Read the directory entries, and insert the subfiles into the cwd_file'
table. */
- clear_files ();
+ if (! entangle_dirs)
+ clear_files ();
while (1)
@@ -2615,7 +2645,7 @@
DIRED_PUTCHAR ('\n');
- if (cwd_n_used)
+ if (cwd_n_used && ! entangle_dirs)
print_current_files ();
@@ -3464,6 +3494,10 @@
print_with_commas ();
break;
+ case jam:
+ print_jam ();
+ break;
+
case long_format:
for (i = 0; i < cwd_n_used; i++)
@@ -4418,6 +4452,24 @@
putchar ('\n');
+static void
+print_jam (void)
+
+ size_t filesno;
+ size_t pos = 0;
+
+ for (filesno = 0; filesno < cwd_n_used; filesno++)
+
+ struct fileinfo const *f = sorted_file[filesno];
+ size_t len = length_of_file_name_and_frills (f);
+
+ print_file_name_and_frills (f, pos);
+ pos += len;
+
+ putchar ('\n');
+
+
+
/* Assuming cursor is at position FROM, indent up to position TO.
Use a TAB character instead of two or more spaces whenever possible. */
@@ -4627,11 +4679,13 @@
-D, --dired generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
+ -e, --entangle display multiple directory contents as one\n\
-f do not sort, enable -aU, disable -ls --color\n\
-F, --classify append indicator (one of */=>@ ) to entries\n\
--file-type likewise, except do not append *'\n\
--format=WORD across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l,\n\
single-column -1, verbose -l, vertical -C\n\
+ jam -j\n\
--full-time like -l --time-style=full-iso\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
@@ -4667,6 +4721,8 @@
-i, --inode print the index number of each file\n\
-I, --ignore=PATTERN do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN\
\n\
+ -j jam output together, makes the most of limited\n\
+ space on modern systems (cell phones, twitter)\n\
-k like --block-size=1K\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
@@ -4733,6 +4789,7 @@
-w, --width=COLS assume screen width instead of current value\n\
-x list entries by lines instead of by columns\n\
-X sort alphabetically by entry extension\n\
+ -y answer all questions with \"yes\"\n\
-Z, --context print any SELinux security context of each file\n\
-1 list one file per line\n\
"), stdout);
It remains to be seen if multi-option enabled coreutils will be accepted
into Debian in time for the next release. Due to some disagreements with
the coreutils maintainer, the matter has been
referred to the Technical
Committee
(
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Traditionally new
ls contributors stop once enough options have been
added that they can spell their name, in the best traditions of yellow
snow. Once
ls -richard -stallman worked, I'm sure RMS moved on other
other more pressing concerns. The current maintainer, David MacKenzie, was
clearly not done yet, since only
ls -david -mack worked. But he was being
slow to add these last few features, and
ls was very deficient in the realm
of spelling my name (
ls -o -hss .. srsly?), so I took matter into my own
hands in the best tradition of free software.
Voting is open in the Debian Project Leader Elections 2012
So now I need to figure out who to vote for. This year I didn t take part in the discussions (all my spare time was bought, basically). The platforms are linked from the Debian Project Leader Elections 2012 page above and the key discussions were:
It s taken some time, but now none of my personal Linux hosts (4 in total) are running the 2.6 kernel any more.
From the start (January) my company web host on Amazon EC2 has been running a 3.x kernel. My little Acer Aspire Revo low power home server, with attached disk pack that sits in my shed in a network cabinet has run 3.x for the last 6 months or so. My Linux laptop (Dell Studio 1558) which only recently got installed (and, since removing Windows, hasn t overheated once!) went to 3.x immediately. And the last piece of the puzzel is a virtual machine I ve had for many years with Bytemark.co.uk they re now offering a 3.2 kernel in their menu of selectable kernels.
Not that 3.x is that much different than 2.6.3x; but its a line in the sand of feature and security thats easy to identify. But with nearly 15 years of looking at a 2.x kernel, its about time we moved to 3.x!
This is my monthly summary of my Debian related activities. If you re among the people who 
Dpkg
Thanks to Guillem, dpkg with multiarch support is now available in Debian sid. The road has been bumpy, and it has again been delayed multiple times even after Guillem 
OK, this is not another post on how to use Mutt and Gmail. This is just to comment on a feature I found in Mutt that was not obvious, and that helped me to stop running my own anti-spam tool.
So, for a number of reasons, my company stop filtering spams. I was setting up 
Sarah's Mum had accrued too much annual leave and had to take some time off
work, so Sarah did some (very mild) arm twisting and convinced her to come
over for 3 weeks, and do a 5 day cruise to Mexico out of New Orleans.
Unfortunately, my annual leave situation wasn't quite so abundant, and I had
a lot going on at work, so regretfully I didn't join them on the cruise, and
instead went to New Orleans for a four day weekend when they returned.
From all reports, the cruise was very good. Zoe handled it well, although
she did say "home" a lot. One of the two stops in Mexico was to check out
some Mayan ruins, which looked awesome from the photos. The other stop
involved a dolphin encounter. I was incredibly envious of all that they got
to do, and would have loved to have gone with them, as I've never been on a
cruise ship either.
I can also report that no cats were lost during this bachelor stint.
I had a night flight on the Wednesday evening to get there, which was
scheduled to get in at around midnight, and I'd booked a motel room near the
airport for that night, and we'd booked a vacation rental home for Thursday
to Sunday nights. Unfortunately, my flight ended being delayed something
like 2.5 hours, so I didn't get into New Orleans until around 2am.
The 
Hm, I realized that I
The animation is of course due to ImageMagick glueing one hundred files into
a single animated gif.
More information about 
Check out his interview to learn more about some of the numerous ways one can get involved in Debian, managing its infrastructure and without having to be a packager.
Raphael: Who are you?
J rg: My name is J rg Jaspert and I m 35 years old working for a small company
doing system administration and consulting work for our customers.
I m married for a little while now and sometime soon a little Ganneff
will be crawling out of my wife. (Whoever didn t think of the movie
Alien now is just boring).
Raphael: How did you start contributing to Debian?
J rg: I started using Debian somewhere around 2000, 2001. Before that I had
the misfortune to try SuSE and RedHat, both with a user experience that
let me fully understand why people think Linux is unusable. (Due to my
work I m in the unfortunate situation to have to use RedHat on two
machines. Funny how they are still utter crap and worse than bad toys).
And all of this lets get a Linux running here came up because I was
trying to find a replacement for my beloved OS/2 installation, which I
had for some years.
So after I got Debian installed, good old Potato, I got myself active on
our mailing lists, starting with the German user one.
A bit later I replied to a question if someone can help as staff for a
Debian booth somewhere. It was the most boring event I ever visited
(very nice orga, unfortunately no visitors), but I got a few important
things there: