Re: [coreutils] Re: [PATCH 2/2] stat: print timestamps to full resolution

[Jim Meyering]

Andreas Schwab wrote:
> Eric Blake <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> * src/stat.c (epoch_time): New function.
>> (print_stat): Use it for %[WXYZ].
>> * NEWS: Document this.
>> * tests/touch/60-seconds: Adjust test to match.
>> ---
>>
>> It bugs me that %x has more information than %X in 'stat --format',
>> especially, since we don't support any format modifiers for getting
>> at the additional information.  We're already incompatible with
>> BSD stat(1) format modifiers, and there is no standard for stat(1),
>> so I wasn't too worried about changing the meaning of existing
>> modifiers rather than burning new letters just for the nanosecond
>> portions.  And now that POSIX 2008 requires nanonsecond resolution
>> in stat(2), you could argue that we should always be displaying it.
>
> There are a lot of scripts that assume whole integer output from
> %[WXYZ].  It would have been better to make this optional and
> non-default.

Hi Andreas,

I was concerned about that risk, but searched for uses of stat
that would be affected and found so few that it seemed ok:

    http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.coreutils.general/161/focus=270

Can you point to any others?