Debian Bug report logs - #261552
df: breaks lines even when output is not a tty

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Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Eric Yagerlener <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Subject: df: text formatting issues when kernel uses devfs

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 13:23:38 -0400 (EDT)

Subject: df: text formatting issues when kernel uses devfs
Package: coreutils
Version: 5.0.91-2
Severity: normal

Unlike the command ps which will adjust its text formatting for the width 
of the terminal, and will not truncate or otherwise add extra linefeeds to 
its output if stdout is directed to a pipe or file, df always formats the 
text for an 80 column terminal regardless of actual terminal width or if 
stdout is a pipe or a file.

The linefeed after the device name breaks perl and shell scripts that 
parse df's output.  df should never attempt to split lines if it's 
outputing to a pipe or a file.  Even if the terminal is wide enough to 
display the data in one line, the extra linefeed is still inserted 
regardless.  The text formatting should be changed to be more 
concise when dealing with kernels that use devfs.

Sample Ugly Output:

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part3
                      14259064  11277248   2836952  80% /
tmpfs                   128404         0    128404   0% /dev/shm
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part1
                         29737      1776     27347   7% /boot
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3
                      79723696  32051984  43684784  43% /video

With more space efficient text formatting, the output will almost fit an 
80 column display.

Filesystem           		       1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part3  14259064  11277248   2836952  80% / 
tmpfs                                     128404         0    128404   0% /dev/shm
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part1     29737      1776     27347   7% /boot
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3  79723696  32051984  43684784  43% /video

df -h is even uglier.

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part3
                       14G   11G  2.8G  80% /
tmpfs                 126M     0  126M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part1
                       30M  1.8M   27M   7% /boot
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3
                       77G   31G   42G  43% /video

With some reformatting it WILL fit an 80 column display properly!

Filesystem            			Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part3   14G   11G  2.8G  80% /
tmpfs                 			126M     0  126M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/part1	 30M  1.8M   27M   7% /boot
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3   77G   31G   42G  43% /video



-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux athlon-xp 2.4.26 #1 Sat Jul 24 11:22:24 EDT 2004 i686
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US

Versions of packages coreutils depends on:
ii  libacl1                     2.2.23-1     Access control list shared library
ii  libattr1                    2.4.16-1     Extended attribute shared library
ii  libc6                       2.3.2.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an

---
Eric Yagerlener

Message #10 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Arthur Korn" <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Subject: nothing to do with devfs

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 20:20:21 +0200

retitle 261552 df: breaks lines even when output is not a tty
thanks

Hi

This has nothing to do with devfs, devfs only happens to produce
quite long device names, but it breaks regardless of why the
lines get so long.

ciao, 2ri
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Message #17 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Thomas Hood <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Subject: Behavior unchanged

Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:42:28 +0100

In 5.2.1 df still breaks lines if writing to a pipe

jdthood@turmeric:/mnt$ df | cat -
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda7             11191604   7108712   3514384  67% /
/dev/hda6             10082852   7811056   1759608  82% /mnt/hda6
/dev/hda3               490496     14350    450820   4% /mnt/hda3
tmpfs                   257336        16    257320   1% /dev/shm
jdsklfjsaklffjdsjfkldsjfkldsjfkldjslfkdsj
                        257336         0    257336   0% /mnt/x
$ df --version
df (coreutils) 5.2.1

Message #20 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Thomas Hood <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Subject: Workaround

Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:48:12 +0100

This may help you:

`-P'
`--portability'
     Use the POSIX output format.  This is like the default format
     except for the following:

       1. The information about each filesystem is always printed on
          exactly one line; a mount device is never put on a line by
          itself.  This means that if the mount device name is more
          than 20 characters long (e.g., for some network mounts), the
          columns are misaligned.

       2. The labels in the header output line are changed to conform
          to POSIX.

$ df --portability
Filesystem         1024-blocks      Used Available Capacity Mounted on
/dev/hda7             11191604   7108748   3514348      67% /
/dev/hda6             10082852   7811056   1759608      82% /mnt/hda6
/dev/hda3               490496     14350    450820       4% /mnt/hda3
tmpfs                   257336        16    257320       1% /dev/shm
jdsklfjsaklffjdsjfkldsjfkldsjfkldjslfkdsj    257336         0    257336       0% /mnt/x
$ df --version
df (coreutils) 5.2.1

-- 
Thomas Hood

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