"...we don't mean to dictate, only to improve things" -Pádraig Brady <http://unix.stackexchange.com/users/37127/p%c3%a1draig-brady> Feb 15 at 20:46 <http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/258679/why-is-ls-suddenly-wrapping-items-with-spaces-in-single-quotes#comment455651_262162>
Somebody went and dictated ls' new behavior, and now my files with spaces look really really ugly. I just upgraded to Fedora 24 which has the new ls. I rsync'ed my music from my old hard drive to my new one and noticed spurious characters. I was looking around, trying to find out what I did wrong/what it meant/etc. I don't have single quotes in many of my filenames, although I do in some. Look at this directory listing: AWOLNation 'Joe Jackson' 'Cage the Elephant' 'Joy Division' 'Calabria 2008' 'Joy Division-All Gods Angels Beware.m3u' 'Carly Rae Jepsen' 'Joy Division-Joy Division The Peel Sessions 10 Dec 79.m3u' 'Cat Power' 'Joy Division-The Peel Sessions Unreleased Tracks.m3u' 'Culture Club' 'Katy Perry' 'Cyndi Lauper' 'Laura Branigan' 'Daft Punk' Offspring That is just plain ugly. Don't you think I can see the spaces in my filenames? What do those quotes do but add cruft? Who thinks they know better than I do? How was this decision made? (that's a rhetorical question, I don't want an answer because I've read the arguments and I think it's a really bad idea.) Who ever thinks that what you get is not what is actually there is ever a good idea??? Yes, you can opt out. This is akin to what email spammers have been teling us for years about tracking us and sticking ads in our inboxes. That "Hey, no problem- you can always opt out..." Even if you can (and there are some legitimate sites out there that will opt you out), the point is that you should not stick your choices into people's faces. Offer up the alternative... don't create an alternative, then say "Now you get it because I say so. Don't like it? You can always change it back..." That's insulting. -- -Mike Schwager