:: Re: [DNG] Coreutils 8.25 ls output
Top Page
Delete this message
Reply to this message
Author: Rainer Weikusat
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] Coreutils 8.25 ls output
Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt@???> writes:
> Emiliano Marini writes:
>> Great Scott! Introducing unwanted changes in packages containing the
>> word "core", congratulations!
>>
>> This will break up 99% of the scripts out there...
>
> Why?
>
> This won't break common code such as
>
>   for a in *.xml; do
>      ...

>
> What it breaks is rubbish such as
>
>   for a in $(ls *.xml); do
>      ...

>
> and arguably it doesn't even break that.


Indeed. According to the coreutils ML thread, the new default behaviour
only applies when isatty(1) is true, ie, when output is to some
(presumably interactively used) terminal device. This may effect some
code which executes shell code non-interactively via pty and tries to
parse the output but that's certainly not "most scripts".

The main downside would be that names with embedded ' can now no longer
be copied&pasted into application which don't understand shell quoting
syntax (and - of course - the guy who's in favour of the change thinks
"nobody uses copy&paste in the way" and the grounds that he prefers
using GUI file selection dialogs for such tasks) but that's IMHO just a
minor nuisance.