bug#18051: 24.3.92; ls-lisp: Sorting; make ls-lisp-string-lessp a normal function?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> > Anyway, what I want to reach:
> > 
> >   (1) sort in files starting with a dot as if they had no dot
>
> Why?  Personally, it would mightily confuse me: I always expect to
> find all the dot-files together.  This is useful, e.g., when I'm
> looking for init file related to some feature, but I don't know the
> exact name of that file.

But currently all dot files are listed before all the other files.
I find that annoying most of the time.  Dunno yet if I like my current
setup, I'll see - but over the current sorting, I would much prefer
having all the dot files at the end.  (I don't know if this is possible
with ls.)

> But if 'ls' supports that, so should ls-lisp.

It depends on "locale" settings.  I tried some settings of the LC_ALL
variable.  With "C" or "POSIX", I get the same sorting as with ls-lisp.
OTOH, with "en_US.utf8" or "de_DE.utf8" I get the sorting I described,
with dot files merged with the other files.

> >   (2) -v sorting (sorting versions correctly)
>
> Isn't this what "ls -v" does?  If so, and if ls-lisp doesn't currently
> support that, patches to add such support are welcome.

ls -v sorts backup versions in their natural order (which is not the
lexicographic order).  Yes, would be good to have that in ls-lisp, and
should not be too hard.  I can give it a try when I get the time.  But
I'm not sure what would have to be done about the locale depend part.