Re: ls -l|head seems to look at all files in directory

[Bob Proulx]

Jim Meyering wrote:
> Right.  The change that made ls -1U more efficient was after 6.12
> [v6.12-113-g8d974b0]:
> 
> commit 8d974b00fbbc2025de63e1e6d54827648fefa1c4
> Author: Kamil Dudka <address@hidden>
> Date:   Wed Jul 30 14:31:50 2008 +0200
> 
>     ls -U1 now uses constant memory
> 
>     When printing one name per line and not sorting, ls now uses
>     constant memory per directory, no matter how many files are in
>     the directory.
>     * ls.c (print_dir): Print each file name immediately, when possible.
>     * NEWS: Mention the improvement.

Hmm...  Traditionally hasn't output to a pipe been the same as -1?  So
it seems to me that 'ls -U | cat' should be the same as 'ls -1U | cat',
shouldn't it?  This makes me wonder why the -1 is needed for this
behavior.  It would seem that output to a pipe should be enough.

Bob