Re: date enhancement - filter to preface each line of input with timestamp

[Ray Dillinger]

On 11/02/2015 08:47 AM, Evan Rempel wrote:

> While I agree in principle with the general rule, I do not agree in this
> case. All of the solutions I can find on the web, including the one your
> cite, involve using a different programming language to write a program
> that solves the problem. In some languages, such as awk, the program is
> very simple, but it still requires invoking another interpreter to
> execue a program. Using that logic, there isn't any need for most of the
> coreutils programs. Just use awk to replace cut or perl to replace tr.
> The coreutils makes this easier to use and easier to read/understand.

I think there's an even more compelling argument for this in that
if it were a standard coreutils functionality, all these timestamps
would (by default at least) be in the same format. That would enable
the creation of further tools that work with line timestamps and
do things with them, that don't have to be ported and changed every
time someone wants to apply them to timestamps generated by a
different codebase.

IOW, while you can easily get the basic functionality using dozens of
different tools, you then get a dozen very slightly, superficially
different kinds of functionality. These are bumps and warts that
make further tools using that functionality more restricted and/or
harder to develop.

Coreutils producing it in a standard way would make further tools
that people develop easier to write and more broadly applicable.

                                Bear

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