[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
bug#25540: notice issue in expand -- doesn't allow for expressing tabsiz
From: |
Pádraig Brady |
Subject: |
bug#25540: notice issue in expand -- doesn't allow for expressing tabsize value in tabstop(s) |
Date: |
Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:29:00 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.2.0 |
On 26/01/17 04:29, L A Walsh wrote:
>
> In programs that take tabstops, as an alternative to a tabsize, I've always
> seen tabs beyond the end of the list taken as equal to the highest tab-stop
> difference. So for a tabsize=8, a tabset of 1,9 would be equivalent -- with
> tabs above "9" being "9-1" or every 8th column above 9.
>
> Otherwise you have no way of expression all tabs on a line that
> stretches out to
> "???" 160? 240? what? other than to enumerate tabstops to infinity.
>
> If they want to limit tabstops above the last to size "1", they can use
> something like 1,9,10. How else can one specify tabs beyond the last
> for a size other than "1"?
>
> Could this be changed/fixed?
This is a fair point:
$ seq 8 | paste -s -d'\t' | expand --tabs=1,9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Though changing that would break backwards compat,
and expand is documented in texinfo as doing exactly as above.
Moreover POSIX specifies exactly this operation:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/expand.html
So we'd have to use an extension to do this.
Perhaps something like:
expand --tabs=1,9,...
cheers,
Pádraig