fileutils - contribution - digit delineation in number output (735,666,912)

[matt andrew]

Hi.

About a year ago, I patched lib/human.c and src/df.c, to allow for the display
of numbers with comma-delimitation (ie it's easier for me to read 738,698,344
than simply 738698344).  At the time, I'd done a search and found no other
reference to such functionality.  I thought this strange since I find it MUCH
more readable than even the "738M" human-readable display mode.  It's a minor
patch - it only worked with df (that's all I cared about at the time), so only
df compiled (I modified human.c and that's linked to several other of the
utils) - so I never bothered to offer it to the maintainers for inclusion.  I
figured I should make every fileutil work (ls, dd) and share it.  I've updated
it (mostly so far) to work with 4.1.9 (original version was for 4.0.something).
 It can easily be modified to use a space or a dot for the delineation (ie 400
000 or 500.000.000).  Also, it's easy to change the interstitial delineation
distance (for 1000,0000 or 10,00).  Right now, df works and ls is on its way.

I have a couple questions:

Right now, it ignores all other options present.  I'm not sure which way I
should go on this.  If "-P" (posix output format) is specified, should it
ignore the --comma-delimit option?

"--comma-delimit" would be the long option, of course (also --dot-delimit and
--space-delimit).  One question I never answered was whether it was kosher to
allow a command-line argument of a comma, as in "ls -l,R" or simply "df -,"  It
would be a good mnemmonic if it is 'okay' to do that (as in, "wanna use commas?
 just append -,").  Also, it would be less likely to conflict with other future
options.  It works, but is it kosher?  (or does anyone care?)

My patch also allows a modification of the width of the numbers displayed. 
Normally, all the numbers line up as long as each is 9 digits or less.  Now,
any size can be selected (at compile time).  I'm testing everything with a
10-digit width, since I've had a few multi-gigabyte files.



=====
-Matt Andrew

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