Re: Bug#339136: Changes in stat package output break apt-move

[Jim Meyering]

Michael Stone <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 11:42:12AM +0100, Jim Meyering wrote:
>>  With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
>>  If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
>>  string.
>
> Hmm. I don't know if I like this change--it really screws with
> compatability without offering any obvious advantage in my mind.

I do see your point of view, since the `stat' program doesn't feel
very new, now.  But back when I made the change, it *was* relatively new.
And now that I've made 5 releases (two stable) with this behavior,
changing stat back to always emit a trailing newline seems like it'd be
even more disruptive.

FYI, I proposed this change almost two years ago:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2004-02/msg00006.html

And checked it in 2 months later, just after the release of 5.2.1.
There were no objections.