Description of problem: There is a bug with the "ls -l" command and alignment of the timestamp and filename output. The ls command will currently show the entire owner and group names, which if they are long will distort the output horribly. I asked on the coreutils buglist about this, and they replied this was fixed as of coreutils- 5.1.0. Reference: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2005-03/msg00145.html Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): coreutils-4.5.3-26 How reproducible: Every Time Steps to Reproduce: 1. ls -l Actual results: total 40 drwxr-x--x 5 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 4096 Mar 23 12:30 ./ drwxr-x--x 28 root root 4096 Mar 23 12:28 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 24 Mar 23 12:28 .bash_logout -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 191 Mar 23 12:28 .bash_profile -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 124 Mar 23 12:28 .bashrc drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 23 12:29 .wusage7/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 43 Mar 23 12:28 access-log - > /www/logs/cbipropertyinspections-access-log -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections users 1845 Mar 23 12:30 count.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Mar 23 12:28 error-log - > /www/logs/cbipropertyinspections-error-log drwxr-xr-x 2 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 4096 Mar 23 12:28 infobots/ -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 71 Mar 23 12:29 mailredirect drwxr-s--x 6 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 4096 Mar 23 12:47 www/ Expected results: total 40 drwxr-x--x 5 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 4096 Mar 23 12:30 ./ drwxr-x--x 29 root root 4096 Mar 24 09:46 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 24 Mar 23 12:28 .bash_logout -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 191 Mar 23 12:28 .bash_profile -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 124 Mar 23 12:28 .bashrc drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Mar 24 06:15 .wusage7/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 43 Mar 23 12:28 access-log -> /www/logs/cbipropertyinspections-access-log -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections users 1845 Mar 23 12:30 count.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Mar 23 12:28 error-log -> /www/logs/cbipropertyinspections-error-log drwxr-xr-x 2 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 4096 Mar 23 12:28 infobots/ -rw-r--r-- 1 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 71 Mar 23 12:29 mailredirect drwxr-s--x 6 cbipropertyinspections cbipropertyinspectionsgrp 4096 Mar 23 12:47 www/
Is the problem that you find it hard to read, or that you have tools that rely on a particular format, or a different reason?
Both actually. With a large directory of files with different length ownerships, the output is unreadable. We also use some scripts that depend on certain alignment which makes it hard to predict.
I think this might be too risky a change at this point in the RHEL3 cycle. Although this format has changed since GA, incorporating the 5.2.1-style format would still be a different format than the one shipped in GA, so if anything it might make things worse. I'm going to close this as CURRENTRELEASE, meaning that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 addresses this issue.