Re: Proposal: ls-lisp.el handle --group-directories-first flag

[Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>]

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Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>
>> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2021 11:19:52 +0200
>> 
>> Just a minor 'out-of-the-box' quality of life improvement mostly for
>> MS Windows users. ls-lisp.el is default on MS Windows, and some users
>> might share their init configuration between their Gnu/Linux and MS
>> Windows systems, it might be nice to have ls-lisp.el recognize
>> `--group-directories-first' flag of Gnu ls program.
>> 
>> I have just piggy-back on existing code here; I am not sure if I can
>> actually set `ls-lisp-dirs-firs' var to `t' when
>> `--group-directories-first' is found, so I am just converting this flag
>> to `y' so we can per-use existing machinery. But I would happily skip
>> `y' if it is acceptable to change users choice for `ls-lisp-dirs-first'
>> variable when `--group-directories-first' is present.
>
> This is not future-proof: what if 'ls' in some future release will
> have the -y option, and we'd want to support that in ls-lisp.el?
Yes, I knowm I just thought that world does not directly see an explosion of
'ls' applications development. Yes, I had an idea you wouldn't like the
hacky patch, it was nore of a joke.

> Doesn't it work to let-bind ls-lisp-dirs-first?

I don't know about that one. ls-lisp--insert-directory effectively
ensures that switches are passed further the line as a string of
chars. The flag is lost in the first step and can't be passed further
on. I am not sure it's worth the trouble to modify that behaviour. Or
maybe I don't know what you mean. 

Anyway, see if this is acceptable. It adds one extra variable, so it's still
pretty cheap.


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--- ../emacs/lisp/ls-lisp.el	2021-06-06 23:11:38.317648694 +0200
+++ ./ls-lisp.el	2021-07-16 15:00:29.000632720 +0200
@@ -253,6 +253,9 @@
   "Format to display float file sizes.")
 (defvar ls-lisp-filesize-b-fmt " %.0f"
   "Format to display file sizes in blocks (for the -s switch).")
+(defvar ls-lisp--really-dirs-first nil
+  "`t' if either ls-lisp-dirs-first is set to `t' or GNU ls flag
+  \"--group-directory-first\" is passed in switches to ls-lisp.")
 \f
 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 
@@ -291,6 +294,9 @@
 	;; Remove --dired switch
 	(if (string-match "--dired " switches)
 	    (setq switches (replace-match "" nil nil switches)))
+        (setq ls-lisp--really-dirs-first
+              (or ls-lisp-dirs-first
+                  (string-match "--group-directories-first" switches)))
 	;; Convert SWITCHES to a list of characters.
 	(setq switches (delete ?\  (delete ?- (append switches nil))))
 	;; Sometimes we get ".../foo*/" as FILE.  While the shell and
@@ -682,7 +688,7 @@
 	       (ding) (sit-for 2))))	; to show user the message!
   (if (memq ?F switches)		; classify switch
       (setq file-alist (mapcar 'ls-lisp-classify file-alist)))
-  (if ls-lisp-dirs-first
+  (if ls-lisp--really-dirs-first
   ;; Re-sort directories first, without otherwise changing the
   ;; ordering, and reverse whole list.  cadr of each element of
   ;; `file-alist' is t for directory, string (name linked to) for