bug#21325: ls : feature request --width=zero

[Aaron Davies]

On Aug 24, 2015, at 3:34 AM, f0rhum <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> Le 23/08/2015 23:11, Stephane Chazelas a écrit :
> 
>> 2015-08-23 13:26:35 +0200, Erik Auerswald:
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 08:58:01PM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
>>>> Pádraig Brady wrote:
>>>>> Also base64 -w0 has similar meaning.
>>>> I didn't know that, but I don't like that either.  Utilities should
>>>> use an explicit representation for infinity, if that's what they
>>>> need.  'Inf', say.
>>>> 
>>>> In the meantime, the patch that I installed is helpful even if we
>>>> later add an explicit representation of infinity.
>>> Using 0 to disable a length or width limit is quite common with networking
>>> gear. I do not know any example requiring a keyword like "Inf", neither
>>> UNIX (like) nor other CLIs.
>> [...]
>> 
>> Anything using strtod() to parse numbers should understand inf
>> or infinity (with any vAriATion on the case).
>> 
>> That's the case of GNU sleep for instance.
>> 
>> That doesn't apply to integers though.
> 
> I'm not involved, but just a suggestion if no one tought about this: why
> not use w-1 ?

here's some more precedent for 0 meaning infinity; from `info sed':

> `-l N'
> `--line-length=N'
>     Specify the default line-wrap length for the `l' command.  A
>     length of 0 (zero) means to never wrap long lines.  If not
>     specified, it is taken to be 70.
-- 
Aaron Davies
address@hidden