problem with ls -a

[Joe Halpin]

I hadn't noticed this personally because I don't use the -a option that
much. But I saw a discussion about it on comp.unix.shell, and thought
I'd mention it in case nobody else did.

What people have come to expect from -a is that the dot files will all
appear before other files. In the ls that comes with fileutils 4.0.36,
they are intermixed. For example:

$ unalias ls
$ ls -a
.                         News
..                        .newsrc
.acrorc                   .newsrc~
.bash_history             .newsrc.eld
.bash_logout              .newsrc.eld~
.bash_profile             .newsrc-news
.bashrc                   nsmail
bin                       office52
.cddbslave                personal
core                      pictures
.cpan                     .RealNetworks_RealCookies_60
.DCOPserver_linux1        .RealNetworks_RealMediaSDK_60
Desktop                   .RealNetworks_RealPlayer_60
.dxpc.pid-linux1-jhalpin  .RealNetworks_RealShared_00
.emacs                    Reqrd_Info_for_OneTime_ENC_Review.doc
.emacs~                   .saves-15009-linux1~
.esd_auth                 .saves-15971-linux1~
getMail.pl                .saves-1756-linux1~
getMail.pl~               .saves-29559-linux1~
.gimp-1.2                 .saves-355-linux1~
.gnapster                 .sawfish
.gnome                    .screenrc
.gnome-desktop            Socket.plman
.gnome_private            sounds
.gnus                     .sversionrc
.gnus~                    test.pl
.gtkrc-kde                test.pl~
House.jpg                 test.sh
.ICEauthority             tmp
.kde                      .user52.rdb
.kderc                    .viminfo
.kxmlrpcd                 vsclient
.kxmlrpcd-socket-jthyta   .wl
.Maelstrom-data           work
.mc                       .xauth
.MCOP-random-seed         .Xauthority
.mcoprc                   .xmms
.mozilla                  .Xresources
.netscape                 .xsession-errors

$ ls --version
ls (GNU fileutils) 4.0.36
Written by Richard Stallman and David MacKenzie.

Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is
NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.


This is on the RedHat 7.1 distribution of Linux. I suppose RedHat might
have hacked it for some reason, but thought you'd want to know either
way.

Joe