bug#36220: ls -l: maddening mixed left right justifications with numeric ids

[積丹尼 Dan Jacobson]

>>>>> "PE" == Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:
PE> On 6/17/19 8:12 AM, Pádraig Brady wrote:

PE> I prefer the current ("maddening") behavior, as it gives the reader a
PE> useful signal that the user is numeric rather than textual. This is
PE> particularly important when a user name consists entirely of digits,
PE> which is allowed on some systems. In that case, left alignment of a
PE> string like "7777" means it's a textual user name, whereas right
PE> alignment means it's a numeric user ID. Admittedly the disambiguation
PE> is not perfect (as there is no cue when the user name has the maximum
PE> width) but it's helpful in common practice.

PE> I thought this was all documented somewhere - at least, it was a
PE> conscious decision when I wrote that code long ago.

Indeed all you need to do would me mention the logic there on INFO "ls"
and we would realize that this was actually a feature.