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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.works
Subject: Re: grisly grizzled programs
Message-ID: <5083@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 13:14:04 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5083
Posted: Thu Feb 21 13:14:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Feb-85 13:14:04 EST
References: <596@topaz.ARPA>, <372@terak.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 24

> Sheesh!  Now if *any* Unix program should be bug-free, it's "ls".  After
> all, every one of us at every Unix site in the world uses it many times
> a day.  Here is the bug list for "ls" on VAX/UNIX 4.2BSD.
> 
> ::     Newline and tab are considered printing characters in file
> ::     names.
> ::     The output device is assumed to be 80 columns wide.
> ::     The option setting based on whether the output is a teletype
> ::     is undesirable as ``ls -s'' is much different than
> ::     ``ls -s | lpr''...
> 
> C'mon on now, try to tell me that "ls" is polished when it can't deal
> with terminals with screen widths other than 80 columns.  And how much
> work would it take to recognize newline and tab characters and print
> (e.g.) "\n" and "\t" respectively?  And this manual page is, by its own
> admission, a year and a half old!  Can it really take a year and a half
> to fix these problems?????

Actually, it can be fixed in five minutes if you still have a V7 tape.
The real bug behind all of the things mentioned is having ls know about
terminals at all.  This is Berklix brain-damage, not a flaw in Unix.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry