Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 1303964
RFE: df output is non intuitive when reporting on multiple files residing in current directory (docs only)
Last modified: 2016-06-24 09:33:33 EDT
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1303795 +++ +++ Cloned to RHEL7 on recommendation of Centos developer: #10296 +++ Description of problem: sort(1) in coreutils 8.24 has an OPTION to check for strict ordering. -u, --unique with -c, check for strict ordering; without -c, output only the first of an equal run However, df(1) in coreutils 8.24 has no OPTION to check for strict ordering. This is inconsistent considering both df and sort reside in same coreutils package, and generated df output can contain duplicates. Feature Request: The df utility should support strict ordering OPTION (-u). Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): coreutils-8.24, How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. # cd / 2. Execute these commands to see duplicates in output: # df * # df /* # df bin lib lib64 sbin 3. Execute these commands for some nonsensical totals: # cd / # df --totals * # df --totals /l* # df --totals bin lib lib64 sbin Expected results: N/A Additional info: --- Additional comment from Noel McLoughlin on 2016-02-02 04:24:55 EST --- Example of non intuitive output for directory containing 7 files. 7423bfmp:~/workspace/ISO\ ]$ df * --total Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/my_vg-root 163012068 138180884 16527568 90% / /dev/mapper/my_vg-root 163012068 138180884 16527568 90% / /dev/mapper/my_vg-root 163012068 138180884 16527568 90% / /dev/mapper/my_vg-root 163012068 138180884 16527568 90% / /dev/mapper/my_vg-root 163012068 138180884 16527568 90% / /dev/mapper/my_vg-root 163012068 138180884 16527568 90% / /dev/mapper/my_vg-root 163012068 138180884 16527568 90% / total 1141084476 967266188 115692976 90% -
Thanks Noel for bringing this to upstream mailing list. ** The only feedback from coreutils@gnu.org is from Bernhard Voelker *** <quote> I'm not too enthusiastic for such an option. This is the first time I've seen someone doing "df *". Although it doesn't seem to be explicitly specified by POSIX, I'd assume a consistent behavior like many other tools which do their job for each command line argument regardless whether it may make sense (stat, du) or maybe not (df, dirname). Furthermore, since the introduction of the output field 'file', it really makes sense to not unify the output: $ df -h --out=source,target,file df du mv Filesystem Mounted on File /dev/sda5 /media/big_data df /dev/sda5 /media/big_data du /dev/sda5 /media/big_data mv A --unique option would clash with this output format. Finally, I'm not sure if everyone is aware that also regular files can be a mount point (admittedly, the output of 'findmnt' is a little more useful in this case): $ touch a b c $ mount --bind /proc/cpuinfo b $ mount --bind /sys/kernel/notes c $ df -h a b c Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 20G 14G 5.2G 73% / proc 0 0 0 - /root/tmp/b sysfs 0 0 0 - /root/tmp/c Still, when 2 lines are really identical (because they are on the same file system and not mounted over), it may be valid to squeeze the output, but I don't think this is following the principle of least suprise: someone might be confused why some lines are missing ... or even relying on that in a script. Anyway, one may simply do that with "... | sort -u" if needed. Have a nice day, Berny </quote> Based on this, keeping opened to possibly adjust info documentation in some of the future updates. This is not something we can implement as downstream patch.
The output of "df *" is not non-intuitive. It is just useless in most of the cases. You are welcome to send a proposal to the bug-coreutils mailing list.