Eric Blake wrote: > On 10/21/2010 08:09 AM, Andreas Schwab wrote: >> Eric Blake<ebl...@redhat.com> writes: >> >>> On 10/21/2010 03:22 AM, Andreas Schwab wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Jim Meyering<j...@meyering.net> writes: >>>> >>>>> And besides, with coreutils-8.6 already released, reverting the >>>>> change is no longer an option. >>>> >>>> Why? I'm pretty sure more breakage will pop up over time. >>> >>> How would you propose 'fixing' it? >> >> Add a flag character, eg. %.X. > > %.X is no good, since we already support %.1X (that is, all printf() > flags should keep their existing printf() meaning). But Jim's proposal > of %:X for extended stat info, especially given how date already > supports %:z for extended timezone formatting, makes sense to me. In > fact, %.3:X might be a nice way to request that the result be > displayed in milliseconds, although Jim's proof of concept patch > didn't cover that aspect.
An alternative would be to leave %X, %Y, etc. as the only operators that print seconds-since-epoch, and let the new %:X print the nanoseconds part of the associated time. Then, to get full seconds.nanoseconds, you'd use a format like %X.%:X and if you want only milliseconds, you'd use %X.%3.3:X
