Re: #155150: diff -u displays unnecessary zeros after the seconds (fwd)

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Santiago Vila <address@hidden>
> Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 00:12:11 +0200 (CEST)
> 
> Question for the author: Would violate some standard to make this
> happen also for -u?

No.

The zeros are useful for modern file systems that record time stamps
to nanosecond precision.  Not everybody has such filesystems now, but
they will eventually.  I suppose "diff" could use a different format
on older hosts that do not support sub-second time stamps.  But this
would just delay the transition problem; it wouldn't make it go away.

Better would be to add a "--time-style" option to diff, like "ls
--time-style".  The current diff default would then correspond to
--time-style=full-iso.  We can then argue over what the default should
be.  (The current "ls -l" default agrees with neither the current nor
the older "diff -u" format; aren't standards wonderful?)