Re: mdate-sh

[Paul Eggert]

> Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:06:26 +0100
> From: Andreas Buening <address@hidden>
> 
> The problem is that "ls -l" on OS/2 delivers the month in the
> third column.

What exactly does the "ls -l" line look like?

> Would it be possible to a) either remove two of the "shift" commands
> or b) use "ls -n -l" (provided that "-n" is standardized)?

Unfortunately -n wasn't in Unix Version 7 and is not required by
POSIX (it's an XSI extension), so we can't rely on it.

Perhaps the most reliable algorithm is to parse the output of "ls -ld
/" and look for a month, and use that to figure out how many columns
to shift.  It's unlikely that / will be owned by a user whose name is
a month.

Can you please propose a patch (diff -u output) and send it to
address@hidden  Automake owns mdate-sh.  Thanks.