[net.unix-wizards] wishlist to be conducted in this group

ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:G:inp (11/02/82)

Mark Horton has suggested that my proposed Unix Wish List netgroup
be carried on in net.unix-wizards.  We can go that route for a while
and see if the volume merits a separate group.  I propose then that
we use the subject line carefully to identify the sub-group and two
other data as follows:
Subject: wish.v7 tar ...
Subject: wish.bsd ls ...
and so on.  This identifies the wishlist subgroup of net.unix-wizards,
the version of unix and/or suspected authors, the command in question,
and any other keywords or usual subject text.
NOTE: there are some wishes for the C compiler appearing in net.lang.c
Here are a few of mine:

Subject: wish.bsd ls
"ls -sF" works fine.  I have a handy "alias lsu  ls -sF [A-Z]*"
which for some reason behaves like -R and lists any directories that
match the pattern.  (plain "ls m*" does the same thing with m*
directories).  Adding the 'a' flag to prevent this causes the
-x behavior to be turned on, sorting by rows not columns.  I've been
told that this is a 'feature', but I found no way to get what I want.
Could we add a -y flag?  It already knows how to sort into columns.

Subject: wish.v7 sort split ...?
Neither sort nor split notice write errors due to "quota exceeded" or
"no space on device", and throw away gobs of data WITH NO WARNING to
the user.  I have to visually check my out_files with ls, wc or another
tool I've written.  Is there ANY reason for this fatal flaw?  How many
other programs are lurking out there with intent to >/dev/null data?

More later, I'm sure.		Bob Tidd	ucbvax!g:inp

thomas (11/02/82)

I'm not sure I understand your question, but ls behavior is well defined
in the cases you mention.  
	'ls directory' will always list the contents of the directory, unless
		the -d flag is specified (not -a, was this a typo?).
	'ls <list of files>' always sorts across, since "Files which are
		not the contents of a directory being interpreted are
		always listed across the page rather than down the
		page in columns.  This is because the individual file
		names may be arbitrarily long." (From the ls(1) manual
		page.)
=Spencer