bug#16187: Tabbed output of "guix package -l"

[Roel Janssen <roel@moefel.org>]

> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the report.
>
> Roel Janssen <roel@moefel.org> skribis:
>
>> I'd like the output of a command like "guix package -l" to be tabbed
>> preserving all columns.
>>
>> An example output of the current version:
>> Generation 68	dec 18 2013 12:46:45	(current)
>>   make  4.0     out     /nix/store/...
>>   automake      1.14	out     /nix/store/...
>>   ...
>>
>> What I would like to see:
>>   make          4.0     out     /nix/store/...
>>   automake      1.14    out     /nix/store/...
>>   ...
>>
>> The same applies for the output of "guix package -I" and "guix 
>> package
>> -A"
>
> As discussed on IRC, the rationale (for -I and -A) was to have 
> something
> both human-readable and processable–that is, one can pipe it through
> ‘cut’ and extract the data.  I think that’s an important property, 
> for a
> Unix command-line tool.
>
> Now, ideally, ‘guix package’ would be just one of the user 
> interfaces,
> with others being more user-oriented than command-oriented (see 
> TODO)...
>
> What do you think?
>
> Ludo’.

Hello,

I think a separation between command-oriented and user-oriented
output is a good solution.

Kind regards,
Roel.