Re: Feature Request: du --dir-with-slash

[Pádraig Brady]

Jim Meyering wrote:
> Pádraig Brady <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Thomas Guettler wrote:
>>> Thank you for being interested. I wrote a patch which makes the slash
>>> optional:
>>>
>>> src/du --help:
>>>  ...
>>>   -z, --dir-with-slash  append a slash to directories.
>> I don't think it's worth an option TBH.
>> How about we do this iff POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is not set?
> 
> Hi Pádraig,
> 
> I don't like to encourage the use of POSIXLY_CORRECT,
> and fear such a change might end up doing that.

agree

> Besides, the cost[*]/benefit ratio of adding trailing slashes by
> default looks way too high.
> 
> [*] in potential portability hassles.
> I.e., people could easily come to rely on the GNU df's trailing slashes,
> and then inadvertently write non-portable scripts.

Ah, forwards compatibility. I hadn't considered that.
Therefore the correct path (pardon the pun) is
to get POSIX to update the standard if this is in fact
deemed an improvement warranting that, and work from there.

> I'm very dubious about adding this as an option.
> Do you really think an option is warranted for this,
> considering you can already get the desired behavior
> with a small wrapper, as I demonstrated:

The wrapper is awkward, but it's better than a new option.

So probably best to do nothing here as you suggest.

thanks for the clarifications,
Pádraig.