"ls" spacing between columns

[Jordan Russell]

Hi,

I've noticed that in the latest versions of "ls" (coreutils 5.x I
guess) there's only a single space separating the user, group, and file
size columns when the "-l" option is used. For example:

-rw-------  1 root root 861286 Apr  9 15:10 maillog

Personally, I find directory listings more difficult to read with those
columns packed together so tightly. Would it be possible to make it two
spaces instead (a la FreeBSD "ls")?

-rw-------  1 root  root  861286 Apr  9 15:10 maillog

Patch (against today's CVS) follows.

Thanks,
Jordan Russell


Index: ls.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/coreutils/coreutils/src/ls.c,v
retrieving revision 1.352
diff -u -r1.352 ls.c
--- ls.c        2 Feb 2004 07:59:23 -0000       1.352
+++ ls.c        9 Apr 2004 19:45:32 -0000
@@ -2972,9 +2972,9 @@
  {
    char const *name = (numeric_ids ? NULL : getuser (u));
    if (name)
-    printf ("%-*s ", width, name);
+    printf ("%-*s  ", width, name);
    else
-    printf ("%*lu ", width, (unsigned long int) u);
+    printf ("%*lu  ", width, (unsigned long int) u);
    dired_pos += width;
    dired_pos++;
  }
@@ -2986,9 +2986,9 @@
  {
    char const *name = (numeric_ids ? NULL : getgroup (g));
    if (name)
-    printf ("%-*s ", width, name);
+    printf ("%-*s  ", width, name);
    else
-    printf ("%*lu ", width, (unsigned long int) g);
+    printf ("%*lu  ", width, (unsigned long int) g);
    dired_pos += width;
    dired_pos++;
  }