Re: bin/57252: wc

[RVP <rvp%SDF.ORG@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR bin/57252; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: RVP <rvp%SDF.ORG@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/57252: wc
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2023 12:03:59 +0000 (UTC)

 On Thu, 2 Mar 2023, Marc Daniel Fege wrote:
 
 > thanks a lot for the help. As I understand it -- and I am just a user, not 
 > software developer at all -- SUSv4 2018 states something about unparsability of 
 > that format.
 >
 
 That's only an issue if there's no space between the format specifiers:
 
 $ printf '%7u%7u%7u %s\n' 1000000 10000000 10000000 foo.txt
 10000001000000010000000 foo.txt
 $
 
 but, all BSDs put a space like this, so that situation doesn't apply:
 
 $ printf ' %7llu %7llu %7llu %s\n' 1000000 10000000 10000000 foo.txt
   1000000 10000000 10000000 foo.txt
 $
 
 > Therefore: do those annoying spaces need to be there 
 > in the first place (to be compatible in one way or another)? The GNU-
 > implementation is more reasonable in this regard one has to admit. This would 
 > enable to work out the issue by it's roots and not by a workaround.
 >
 
 Following POSIX strictly then results in an ugly display, right? Consider:
 
 1 2 3 foo.txt
 11111 222222 3333333 bar.txt
 
 The padding is there because wc is most often used interactively. People
 who write shell scripts know how to fix this annoyance anyway...
 
 -RVP