bug#10915: 8.13: df -- overly long output lines are very hard to read

[Pádraig Brady]

On 03/01/2012 06:41 AM, Jari Aalto wrote:
> 
> With long path names, the output is very hard to read because each line is
> so long:
> 
>     $ df -Hl
> 
>     Filesystem                                              Size  Used Avail 
> Use% Mounted on
>     rootfs                                                  6.0G  4.1G  1.7G  
> 72% /
>     udev                                                    192M     0  192M  
>  0% /dev
>     tmpfs                                                    40M  1.5M   38M  
>  4% /run
>     /dev/disk/by-uuid/492764a5-7506-4489-8fd0-82d0d284d627  6.0G  4.1G  1.7G  
> 72% /
>     tmpfs                                                   5.3M     0  5.3M  
>  0% /run/lock
>     tmpfs                                                    79M  7.9M   71M  
> 10% /tmp
>     tmpfs                                                    79M     0   79M  
>  0% /run/shm
>     /dev/disk/by-uuid/492764a5-7506-4489-8fd0-82d0d284d627  6.0G  4.1G  1.7G  
> 72% /srv/cante.src
>     /dev/disk/by-uuid/492764a5-7506-4489-8fd0-82d0d284d627  6.0G  4.1G  1.7G  
> 72% /srv/cante.tmp
>     /dev/sdb1                                                18G  8.1G  8.3G  
> 50% /mnt/extent
>     /dev/sdb1                                                18G  8.1G  8.3G  
> 50% /usr/src
>     /dev/sdb1                                                18G  8.1G  8.3G  
> 50% /root/vc

I wouldn't say that's very hard to read at all.
We've addressed the specific uuid case above anyway.

> 
> In a smaller terminal the lines wrap, which makes it even harder:

Well that's not the common case, nor is it common to have
naturally long "Filesystem" items.
For these uncommon cases you could just use a pager like:

  df | less -S

> SUGGESTIONS
> 
> (1) Add exclude to option to filter out items from the display, thus
> calculating the line-up column better.
> 
>         -X, --exclude PATTERN
> 
>     Where patterns could be preferably EREGEXP (best), or in the initial
>     implementation a simple STRING to match.

> (2) Also add option to reverse the output to see the values first (most
> important) in a full display:
> 
>         -r, --reverse

I'm not that enthusiastic about these new options.

cheers,
Pádraig.