Hey, just chiming in, since Jim alerted me to this thread after I recently filed http://bugs.debian.org/505979. I think, printf-like functionality would be very useful to have for very much the same reasons quoted in this thread, so I won't repeat them here.
The issue Jim raises -- bloat -- is surely a valid one, but I don't think there's a way around it. Bloat comes with two immediate dangers: larger size, which isn't really a problem given today's computation power and storage sizes, and manageability/security. printf-like functionality in ls is a worthwhile feature, I don't think there's a debate about that. The question is how to get there. I think it's either bloating the code and making it work, then slowly fading out other options which can be nicely implemented with the new printf-code, or the other way around: rewriting most options from scratch to use a common printf-infrastructure. The latter option surely allows for better design, but it's also guaranteed to take longer and introduce new bugs. The first option, on the other hand, is based on minimal changes, which are a more sustainable way forward, given the age and maturity of ls, I think. In my (possibly not-so) humble opinion, this is separate from fts tree traversal. -- .''`. martin f. krafft <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Related projects: : :' : proud Debian developer http://debiansystem.info `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck http://vcs-pkg.org `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems "the strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. men can be analyzed, women merely adored." -- oscar wilde
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