bug#21325: ls : feature request --width=zero

[Aaron Davies]

On Oct 20, 2015, at 12:31 PM, Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:

> Pádraig Brady wrote:
> 
>> If a limit, then 0 naturally implies no limit. If a length, then 0 is 
>> meaningless.
> 
> It's not meaningless. It means length 0. Length -1 would be meaningless.

I'm entirely indifferent between using 0 and using -1, except to the extent 
that there's any significant precedent for one over the other in existing tools.

> That being said, I'm tired of fighting this issue, so please feel free to go 
> ahead and have 0 mean infinity to the user. But surely this can be done 
> better than to have SIZE_MAX mean infinity internally. Just use 0 to mean 
> infinity; that's less confusing, if that's what 0 means externally. In other 
> words, use SIZE_MAX to stand only for itself, and use 0 to stand for infinity.

Yes, external consistency, internal consistency, and internal-external 
consistency are all valuable.