From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu From: "rob pike" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <20010520001641.0D90F199E9@mail.cse.psu.edu> Subject: [9fans] ls -m Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 20:16:38 -0400 Topicbox-Message-UUID: a30e8498-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 The [muid] format was not chosen at random. I was worried about ls -lm producing three uids. Just printing another uid after the gid would be confusing: two make a couple but three are a lot to keep straight intuitively. I wanted ls -m to be useful without -l, but to have a format that reminds you of its output. (Quick: what are the units in ls -s?) I also considered the possibility of the muid showing up in other places, such as history(1), in which a purely positional mnemonic wouldn't be available. As it stands, if you see [muid] anywhere, you have a clue what it means. I chose a bracket format because it is a parenthetical remark about the file; it contains no permission information, for example. So I understand the objection but I still think it makes sense to present the muid differently. -rob