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Date:      Mon, 16 Feb 2004 14:19:26 -0600
From:      Dan Nelson <dnelson@allantgroup.com>
To:        Feodor Trubetskoy <fedya@ispol.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: ls -l total bug?
Message-ID:  <20040216201926.GH15700@dan.emsphone.com>
In-Reply-To: <40310509.5080306@ispol.com>
References:  <40310509.5080306@ispol.com>

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In the last episode (Feb 16), Feodor Trubetskoy said:
> ls man reads:
> 
>  -l      <skip>  *If the output is to a terminal, a total sum for all 
> the file sizes is output on a line before the long listing.*
> 
> But I have found that ls consistently put "total" in a first line even 
> if output is piped or redirected. As an example:
> 
> ls -l | cat
> 
> Is it bug or I missed something?

The X/Open spec doesn't say anything about suppressing the "total" line
when not sending to a terminal, so I'd say it's a documentation bug.

  If any of the -l, -g, -n, -o, or -s options is specified, each list
  of files within the directory shall be preceded by a status line
  indicating the number of file system blocks occupied by files in the
  directory in 512-byte units, rounded up to the next integral number
  of units, if necessary. In the POSIX locale, the format shall be:

    "total %u\n", <number of units in the directory>


-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson@allantgroup.com



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