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Re: color ls



  Guy>  I will add that `--color' is equivalent to `--color=yes', which is
  Guy> probably not what you want.  If you make any aliases, use
  Guy> `--color=tty'.  You don't want nasty escape codes if it's not a tty.

Those are the old style options implemented by color-ls (which is a patched
version based on fileutils-3.12). The new form is, according to ls --help

[...]
      --color[=WHEN]         control whether color is used to distinguish file
                               types.  WHEN may be `never', `always', or `auto'
[...]
    By default, color is not used to distinguish types of files.  That is
    equivalent to using --color=none.  Using the --color option without the
    optional WHEN argument is equivalent to using --color=always.  With
    --color=auto, color codes are output only if standard output is connected
    to a terminal (tty).                                                   

By the way, the man page distributed with fileutils-3.13-2 still documents
the old form (ie --color={yes,tty})

  Guy> Try `ls --color | less' to see what I mean.

That would now be 'ls --color=always | less' and is why --color=auto is a
better choice.

  Guy> And fileutils does have a bug with regards to color-ls.  It should
  Guy> conflict and replace with it so that it will be removed automatically.
  Guy> I'll file a report.

Yes, please add that it has Pre-Depends: and not Depends:, and that the
manpage needs an update.

--
Dirk Eddelb"uttel                             http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/~edd



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