[9fans] du vs. ls: duplication or not?

[tlaronde@polynum.com]

This is a slightly different point of view from the thread my blunders
have started.

du(1) stands for Disk Usage. But does this, with the "historical" use,
has any real sense now, with a namespace that can be, not only built by
presenting a same file via different paths, but a combination of local
storage (including memory one...) and remote storage?

Furthermore, even for an Unix du(1), if the underlying filesystem shares
common blocks, the count will be wrong. So Unix du(1) seems more
accurate only when it is used on "old" technology.

So if du(1) should stand for Disk Usage, it should tell what disk place
would be needed to _store_ "locally" the files. And this depends
on a lot of things: deduplication of blocks? If one uses a FAT, it
will need the total amount displayed etc.

So, in fact, since there is no real and immediate answer, and keeping in
mind the principle: don't duplicate fonctionnality, wouldn't it be
better to have a 'ls -R' (récursive listing) and no du(1) at all on
Plan9?

This is not a proposal or whatever. But, say, a semantical and
engineering question. And BTW, this is not a critic of what has been and
is done on Plan9. (I finally consider that du(1) does what it promises
in the man page; the "lack" is just a one line caveat that du(1) can not
answer a fuzzy question.)
-- 
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
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