How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Technical issues/questions of an intermediate or advanced nature.
User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#1 by Rava » 21 Nov 2022, 02:54

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/ls-test$ touch a.sh "a and b.sh" "a and b and c.sh"
guest@porteus:/tmp/ls-test$ chmod a+x *.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/ls-test$ ls -otr ./*.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-21 03:41 ./a.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-21 03:41 ./a\ and\ b.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-21 03:41 ./a\ and\ b\ and\ c.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/ls-test$ ls -otr ./*.sh |tail -n 25
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-21 03:41 ./a.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-21 03:41 ./a and b.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-21 03:41 ./a and b and c.sh
Now, when the local folder has many scripts (like what happens in my audio or video folders with the .sh scripts as created by my make-ffplay-script) - I would like to append a tail -n 25 to only see the most recent scripts.
And I would like the output keep its escaping a whitespace via "\ " ... so that I can copy and paste that directly with the mouse, for when i want to execute one of these scripts via terminal.

But unfortunately ls changes its output when it detects that it will be piped to another program as you can see above.

Unfortunately² there is nothing in man ls explaining that or ways to control this behaviour, I looked for "pipe" and "white" as in whitespace, but to no avail (no hit for any of these keywords).


Anyone any idea how one gets ls to use the notion of escaping white spaces with "\ " even when its output is piped?
Cheers!
Yours Rava

User avatar
ncmprhnsbl
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 3924
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 03:42
Distribution: v5.0-64bit
Location: australia
Contact:

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#2 by ncmprhnsbl » 21 Nov 2022, 23:25

Rava wrote:
21 Nov 2022, 02:54
But unfortunately ls changes its output when it detects that it will be piped to another program
i don't have a solution, but, it seems to me that ls would have no way to "detects that it will be piped to another program"
i would have thought that ls just dumps it's output to STDOUT, and that's it. ..and that this is more to do with how tail reads that..
and that it's removing escapes in it's output..

here's something not entirely unrelated, though possibly not helpful in your use case: https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... removing-n
Forum Rules : https://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=44

User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#3 by Rava » 22 Nov 2022, 05:52

ncmprhnsbl wrote:
21 Nov 2022, 23:25
i don't have a solution, but, it seems to me that ls would have no way to "detects that it will be piped to another program"
at least it seems to know when it will be directed into a file.

Look for yourself, I use [ quote ] because then I can use colours to highlight what I mean:
guest@porteus:/tmp$ mkdir test
guest@porteus:/tmp$ cd test/
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ touch test.txt test.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ chmod a+x test.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ /bin/ls -o *
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.txt
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ /bin/ls -o --color=auto *
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.txt
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ /bin/ls -o --color=auto * >tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ cat tmp
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.txt
Please do replicate the above on your own system to see for yourself.
cat sure is always outputting the contents of a file verbatim. Still, its output of "tmp" file lacks any colours.
The ls output of

Code: Select all

/bin/ls -o --color=auto *
uses colours for test.sh - then why does the redirection into a file lacks colours?
It cannot be tail or any other program this time altering the output of ls, only ls is responsible for the contents of the file "tmp".


EDIT
when I use --color=always instead of --color=auto the tmp file contains the colour codes and thus cat displays the one file in colours:
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ /bin/ls -o --color=always *
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 93 2022-11-22 06:45 tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ /bin/ls -o --color=always * >tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ cat tmp
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:42 test.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-11-22 06:58 tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -o tmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 169 2022-11-22 06:58 tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ /bin/ls -o --color=auto * >tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -o tmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 135 2022-11-22 07:01 tmp
I presume the difference between 135 bytes for the "tmp" file and 169 bytes for it is mainly due to the escape sequence responsible for the colour output.

Here I use hexdump -C to illustrate the difference between the 135 bytes version of "tmp" and its 169 bytes version:

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -o tmp 
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 135 2022-11-22 07:01 tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ hexdump -C tmp 
00000000  2d 72 77 78 72 2d 78 72  2d 78 20 31 20 67 75 65  |-rwxr-xr-x 1 gue|
00000010  73 74 20 30 20 32 30 32  32 2d 31 31 2d 32 32 20  |st 0 2022-11-22 |
00000020  30 36 3a 34 32 20 74 65  73 74 2e 73 68 0a 2d 72  |06:42 test.sh.-r|
00000030  77 2d 72 2d 2d 72 2d 2d  20 31 20 67 75 65 73 74  |w-r--r-- 1 guest|
00000040  20 30 20 32 30 32 32 2d  31 31 2d 32 32 20 30 36  | 0 2022-11-22 06|
00000050  3a 34 32 20 74 65 73 74  2e 74 78 74 0a 2d 72 77  |:42 test.txt.-rw|
00000060  2d 72 2d 2d 72 2d 2d 20  31 20 67 75 65 73 74 20  |-r--r-- 1 guest |
00000070  30 20 32 30 32 32 2d 31  31 2d 32 32 20 30 37 3a  |0 2022-11-22 07:|
00000080  30 31 20 74 6d 70 0a                              |01 tmp.|
00000087
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ /bin/ls -o --color=always * >tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -o tmp 
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 169 2022-11-22 07:05 tmp
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ hexdump -C tmp 
00000000  2d 72 77 78 72 2d 78 72  2d 78 20 31 20 67 75 65  |-rwxr-xr-x 1 gue|
00000010  73 74 20 30 20 32 30 32  32 2d 31 31 2d 32 32 20  |st 0 2022-11-22 |
00000020  30 36 3a 34 32 20 1b 5b  30 6d 1b 5b 30 31 3b 33  |06:42 .[0m.[01;3|
00000030  32 6d 74 65 73 74 2e 73  68 1b 5b 30 6d 0a 2d 72  |2mtest.sh.[0m.-r|
00000040  77 2d 72 2d 2d 72 2d 2d  20 31 20 67 75 65 73 74  |w-r--r-- 1 guest|
00000050  20 30 20 32 30 32 32 2d  31 31 2d 32 32 20 30 36  | 0 2022-11-22 06|
00000060  3a 34 32 20 1b 5b 30 30  6d 74 65 73 74 2e 74 78  |:42 .[00mtest.tx|
00000070  74 1b 5b 30 6d 0a 2d 72  77 2d 72 2d 2d 72 2d 2d  |t.[0m.-rw-r--r--|
00000080  20 31 20 67 75 65 73 74  20 30 20 32 30 32 32 2d  | 1 guest 0 2022-|
00000090  31 31 2d 32 32 20 30 37  3a 30 35 20 1b 5b 30 30  |11-22 07:05 .[00|
000000a0  6d 74 6d 70 1b 5b 30 6d  0a                       |mtmp.[0m.|
000000a9
Thanks for the find on unix.stackexchange.com :friends:
I looked into https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... removing-n … and most probably I will post my own question about the very topic on unix.stackexchange.com in the future.
Cheers!
Yours Rava

User avatar
ncmprhnsbl
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 3924
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 03:42
Distribution: v5.0-64bit
Location: australia
Contact:

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#4 by ncmprhnsbl » 22 Nov 2022, 06:52

Rava wrote:
22 Nov 2022, 05:52
at least it seems to know when it will be directed into a file.
hmm, something like that.. from man ls:

Code: Select all

With --color=auto, ls emits color codes  only  when  standard output  is connected  to a terminal.
so, at least, it can tell if stdout is or not connected to a terminal ..

Code: Select all

       -b, --escape
              print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters
not on porteus at the moment, using coreutils 9.1:

Code: Select all

ls -otbr ./*.sh | tail -n 25         
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user 0 Nov 22 16:40 ./a.sh*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user 0 Nov 22 16:40 ./a\ and\ b.sh*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user 0 Nov 22 16:40 ./a\ and\ b\ and\ c.sh*
EDIT: same result with coreutils-9.0 (porteus-5.0)
Forum Rules : https://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=44

itrukrakso
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 62
Joined: 23 Jul 2022, 07:42
Distribution: Porteus 5.01_x86_64 Xfce

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#5 by itrukrakso » 22 Nov 2022, 08:46

Hi,
I had to deal with the variable IFS some time ago.
In my archive I found this link.
https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls
The first paragraph may be helpful.

User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#6 by Rava » 22 Nov 2022, 11:24

Thanks ncmprhnsbl and itrukrakso :)
will look into all in detail and report back. :celebrate3:

Added in 8 hours 58 minutes 53 seconds:
itrukrakso, I looked into https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls and will see what I can make out of it.

But this

Code: Select all

ls -otbr ./*.sh | cut -c 19- |tail -n 25
for now also does the trick.

The solutions in https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls sure would be more robust and overall less error prone, but it needs time to work them out, and time is rare for the next several weeks at least, so the tip by ncmprhnsbl will be what I go with.

Of course many one liners or bash scripts would fail when they encounter a file name that contains more than one line (=using the newline character) but most people do not have such file names.

Added in 1 hour 2 minutes 40 seconds:
And just as I seem to be content with the ls approach I so happen to stumble upon a file name that shows why the ls approach is flawed - a filename that has "&" in it.

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ rm *
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ touch "a and b.sh" "c & d.sh"
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest users 0 2022-11-22 22:16 a\ and\ b.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest users 0 2022-11-22 22:16 c\ &\ d.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -otbr ./*.sh | cut -c 19- |tail -n 25
 0 2022-11-22 22:16 ./c\ &\ d.sh
 0 2022-11-22 22:16 ./a\ and\ b.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ./c\ &\ d.sh
[1] 21606
bash: ./c : No such file or directory
bash:  d.sh: command not found
[1]+  Exit 127                ./c\ 
Of course the correct way of quoting that file is not

Code: Select all

./c\ &\ d.sh
but

Code: Select all

./c\ \&\ d.sh
:

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ echo 'echo "$0"-test' >./c\ \&\ d.sh 
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ chmod a+x c\ \&\ d.sh 
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ./c\ \&\ d.sh
./c & d.sh-test
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ 
:crazy:
Cheers!
Yours Rava

User avatar
ncmprhnsbl
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 3924
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 03:42
Distribution: v5.0-64bit
Location: australia
Contact:

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#7 by ncmprhnsbl » 22 Nov 2022, 22:37

wouldn't you be better off using 'quoting' rather than \escapes?
ie.

Code: Select all

ls -otr --quoting-style=shell
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 Nov 23 08:09 'c & d.sh'
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 0 Nov 23 08:09 'a and b.sh'
./'c & d.sh'
./c & d.sh-test
interestingly, in arch, ls defaults to outputting quoted split named entries, where in slackware, it doesn't..
Forum Rules : https://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=44

User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#8 by Rava » 23 Nov 2022, 00:16

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -otr --quoting-style=shell ./*sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest  0 2022-11-22 22:16 './a and b.sh'
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 15 2022-11-22 22:23 './c & d.sh'
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ './c & d.sh'
./c & d.sh-test
Indeed that works. :Yahoo!:

And I use "./" as starting point of my search to have that included into the result because I need it or else would get just this:

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ 'c & d.sh'
bash: c & d.sh: command not found
because some random PATH where some video or sound files containing folders lie that I processed via my make-ffplay-script would hardly ever be in my $PATH for the shell.
ncmprhnsbl wrote:
22 Nov 2022, 22:37
interestingly, in arch, ls defaults to outputting quoted split named entries, where in slackware, it doesn't..
Can you please post arch's $LS_OPTIONS?
And its $QUOTING_STYLE when it exists?
Porteus' $LS_OPTIONS are:

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ echo $LS_OPTIONS 
-F -b -T 0 --color=auto
man ls says

Code: Select all

--quoting-style=WORD
              use quoting style WORD for entry names: literal, locale,  shell,
              shell-always,   shell-escape,   shell-escape-always,  c,  escape
              (overrides QUOTING_STYLE environment variable)
but at least in Port there is no $QUOTING_STYLE:

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ echo $QUOTING_STYLE

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$
Added in 8 minutes 51 seconds:
At least in Slackware (Porteus) having QUOTING_STYLE as extra environment variable doesn't work:

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ QUOTING_STYLE=shell
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -otr ./*sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest  0 2022-11-22 22:16 ./a\ and\ b.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 15 2022-11-22 22:23 ./c\ &\ d.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ echo $QUOTING_STYLE
shell
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ unset QUOTING_STYLE
but adding QUOTING_STYLE=shell to the LS_OPTIONS environment variable works:

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ LS_OPTIONS='-F -b -T 0 --color=auto QUOTING_STYLE=shell'
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls
a\ and\ b.sh  c\ &\ d.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ ls -otr ./*sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest  0 2022-11-22 22:16 ./a\ and\ b.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 guest 15 2022-11-22 22:23 ./c\ &\ d.sh
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ echo $LS_OPTIONS 
-F -b -T 0 --color=auto QUOTING_STYLE=shell
guest@porteus:/tmp/test$ 
I presume one would have to export the new LS_OPTIONS globally (e.c. via rc.local at startup) to have it globally available.
Still when putting it into a script and therefore relying on its existence is risky, then I would prefer using your manual approach of

Code: Select all

/bin/ls -otr --quoting-style=shell "$@"
Cheers!
Yours Rava

User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#9 by Rava » 23 Nov 2022, 01:01

For now I changed my global "lcrt" function from this

Code: Select all

lcrt () 
{ 
    /bin/ls -otr --time-style=long-iso "$@" | tail -n 26 | cut -c 20-$(expr 19 + $(tput cols))
}
to this

Code: Select all

lcrt () 
{ 
    /bin/ls -otr --time-style=long-iso --quoting-style=shell "$@" | tail -n 26 | cut -c 20-$(expr 19 + $(tput cols))
}
Of course my /usr/local/bin/aliasset uses a more compact syntax:

Code: Select all

function lcrt () { /bin/ls -otr --time-style=long-iso --quoting-style=shell "$@" |tail -n 26|cut -c 20-$(expr 19 + $(tput cols)); }
Added in 5 minutes 32 seconds:
lcrt stands for ls cut reverse (sorted by date) tail

and there also exists a lcr (=sans the tail) and an lc (=sans tail and sans reverse (sorted by date))
Cheers!
Yours Rava

User avatar
ncmprhnsbl
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 3924
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 03:42
Distribution: v5.0-64bit
Location: australia
Contact:

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#10 by ncmprhnsbl » 23 Nov 2022, 02:26

so.. looking at http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/ ... coreutils/
there's a patch: no_ls_quoting.patch.gz
that looks like:

Code: Select all

--- ./src/ls.c.orig	2021-09-24 06:31:05.000000000 -0500
+++ ./src/ls.c	2021-09-24 19:47:32.230001419 -0500
@@ -2342,7 +2342,7 @@
     qs = getenv_quoting_style ();
   if (qs < 0)
     qs = (ls_mode == LS_LS
-          ? (stdout_isatty () ? shell_escape_quoting_style : -1)
+          ? (stdout_isatty () ? escape_quoting_style : -1)
           : escape_quoting_style);
   if (0 <= qs)
     set_quoting_style (NULL, qs);
...in the slackbuild the explanation for which is:

Code: Select all

# Revert change to ls quoting style introduced in coreutils-8.25:
presumably pat has a good reason for it... arch doesn't do this.
Forum Rules : https://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=44

User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#11 by Rava » 23 Nov 2022, 04:50

ncmprhnsbl wrote:
23 Nov 2022, 02:26
so.. looking at http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/ ... coreutils/
there's a patch: no_ls_quoting.patch.gz
[…]
...in the slackbuild the explanation for which is:

Code: Select all

# Revert change to ls quoting style introduced in coreutils-8.25:
presumably pat has a good reason for it... arch doesn't do this.
I don't see the reason for doing so Image , but a least using

Code: Select all

-F -b -T 0 --color=auto QUOTING_STYLE=shell
as your $LS_OPTIONS also works in Slackware.
Cheers!
Yours Rava

User avatar
Ed_P
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 8341
Joined: 06 Feb 2013, 22:12
Distribution: Cinnamon 5.01 ISO
Location: Western NY, USA

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#12 by Ed_P » 23 Nov 2022, 21:07

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:~$ ls -F -b -T 0 --color=auto QUOTING_STYLE=shell
/bin/ls: cannot access 'QUOTING_STYLE=shell': No such file or directory
guest@porteus:~$ 
Ed

User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#13 by Rava » 24 Nov 2022, 01:54

Ed_P wrote:
23 Nov 2022, 21:07

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:~$ ls -F -b -T 0 --color=auto QUOTING_STYLE=shell
/bin/ls: cannot access 'QUOTING_STYLE=shell': No such file or directory
guest@porteus:~$ 
Do not confuse $LS_OPTIONS and calling ls directly.
Look at my function as quoted above
Rava wrote:
23 Nov 2022, 01:07
lcrt ()
{
/bin/ls -otr --time-style=long-iso --quoting-style=shell "$@" | tail -n 26 | cut -c 20-$(expr 19 + $(tput cols))
}
Try

Code: Select all

ls -F -b -T 0 --color=auto --quoting-style=shell
instead.
And know that your approach mixes two things (for whatever reason you choose doing so, in my book it makes not that much sense, but that's only my opinion on that - you might have a good reason why you mix up the options like so), therefore having a quite confusing result of e.g. '.moonchild productions/'/ - the inner part of '.moonchild productions/' is because of --quoting-style=shell - the extra / at the end is because of one of your options. I let you and man ls figure out which one that is and therefore which one to keep away when adding "--quoting-style=shell".

Code: Select all

guest@porteus:~$ ls -F -b -T 0 --color=auto --quoting-style=shell .*/ -d
 ..//                 .cache//      .local//                    .nv//
 .//                  .config//    '.moonchild productions/'/
 .FBReader//          .dbus//       .mozilla//
'.binary outcast/'/   .netsurf//
and also using [ quote ] so that you see the partially colours in its output:
guest@porteus:~$ ls -F -b -T 0 --color=auto --quoting-style=shell .*/ -d
..// .cache// .local// .nv//
.// .config// '.moonchild productions/'/
.FBReader// .dbus// .mozilla//
'.binary outcast/'/ .netsurf//

User avatar
Rava
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 5401
Joined: 11 Jan 2011, 02:46
Distribution: XFCE 5.01 x86_64 + 4.0 i586
Location: Forests of Germany

How to control ls's listing (handling of whitespaces) when piping its output to another program?

Post#14 by Rava » 04 Dec 2022, 07:02

I realized going the lazy and somewhat also insecure way of using ls has its downfalls.
Often my above described function works lcrt ()

Code: Select all

{ 
    /bin/ls -otr --time-style=long-iso --quoting-style=shell "$@" | tail -n 26 | cut -c 20-$(expr 19 + $(tput cols))
}
but only when files are owned by guest or by root and guest.
When a user has files whose name is longer than "guest" it messes up the listing somewhat.
When only files owned by root exist my function cuts of the 1st character of the file size.

Look for yourself, both guest and root use the same function since it is defined in my global file /usr/local/bin/aliasset and activated for root or guest via this hack in their respective ~/.bashrc:

Code: Select all

if  [ -f /usr/local/bin/aliasset ]; then
. /usr/local/bin/aliasset
fi
Of course /usr/local/bin/aliasset needs to be bug free as including it so in every started terminal or virtual terminal session can cause issues when it has some bugs.

When a selection of files contains both files by user root and user guest my function works as it should.

But when the selection of files only contains files by user root it cuts off the 1st character of the size.

Creating mixed owned dummy files:

Code: Select all

root@porteus:/tmp# mkdir temp
root@porteus:/tmp# cd temp/
root@porteus:/tmp/temp# touch test1.txt test2.txt test3.txt Test1.txt Test2.txt Test3.txt
root@porteus:/tmp/temp# chown guest.users Test*
root@porteus:/tmp/temp# ls -o
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-12-04 07:57 Test1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-12-04 07:57 Test2.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest 0 2022-12-04 07:57 Test3.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  0 2022-12-04 07:57 test1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  0 2022-12-04 07:57 test2.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  0 2022-12-04 07:57 test3.txt
Checking all works for lcrt

Code: Select all

root@porteus:/tmp/temp# lcrt 

0 2022-12-04 07:57 test2.txt
0 2022-12-04 07:57 test1.txt
0 2022-12-04 07:57 test3.txt
0 2022-12-04 07:57 Test3.txt
0 2022-12-04 07:57 Test2.txt
0 2022-12-04 07:57 Test1.txt
Checking only the files owned by root fails:

Code: Select all

root@porteus:/tmp/temp# lcrt test*
 2022-12-04 07:57 test2.txt
 2022-12-04 07:57 test1.txt
 2022-12-04 07:57 test3.txt
:wall:
Cheers!
Yours Rava

Post Reply