Re: broken ls in coreutils 8.25

[Harald Dunkel]

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On 02/02/16 14:30, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 02/01/2016 11:17 PM, Harald Dunkel wrote:
>> 
>> This means that the user has to count '\' and "'" in the output of ls to get 
>> the "real" filename.
> 
> Yeah, but which are you more likely to do, retype the "real" filename 
> manually (and insert your own shell quoting as appropriate), or 
> copy-and-paste the existing output with a mouse click or two?
> 

Talking about copy and paste: Have you tried to copy and paste
a string like

        'mom'\''s pictures.png'
or
        mom'\''s pictures.png

into the file selection box of your favorite gui application?
How likely is that this gui knows how to handle the "'" and
the "\'" correctly?

How are you going to explain a noob that he has to edit the
pasted string to

        mom's pictures.png

to make it work?

>> 
>>> - Output can be pasted back in the shell for further processing
>> 
>> This means that it useful only on a graphic terminal, for people using a 
>> mouse, but it affects all users using "ls"
> 
> These days, how many users are NOT using a graphical terminal?  Again, it 
> only affects output to a terminal, and it is very easy to adjust your login 
> setups to change the defaults to something you like, so that _your_ terminal 
> behaves the way you want.
> 

Understood. My point is that the new default has some advantages
for a few (e.g. copy and paste from one shell to another, if you
manage to hit the "'" on copy), but a lot of disadvantages for many
(unreadable and apparently unsorted screen output, user is forced
to "unquote" the text in his mind, breaks copy and paste to other
applications, poor usability on the "copy" part).


Regards
Harri

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