Maddening: ls -l output messed up

[Andrew Scott_3]

the UNIX95 output is spaced wide, just like ls:

$ UNIX95= ps -o group,user,pid
GROUP USER PID
users ascott 2293
users ascott 29308

The output of the groups command is normal:

$ groups
dba sys users

[Andrew Scott_3]

Didn't come out in the text paste, here's a screenshot.

[Hein van den Heuvel]

The dump looks good, not control characters other than \n for new-line.
Specifically no \t for tabs as yo confirmed with vi.

The forum formatting dropped the spaces, so the character dump output is not too useful, but your description was. It suggests NOT to looks at terminal settings to me.

# od -b
would give us the exact bytes, with the space problem, but your description already convinced me that the spaces are there.

Hein

[Andrew Scott_3]

Yes, od -b pukes out all the 040 codes for spaces.

0272400 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 067
0272420 066 065 064 070 040 106 145 142 040 061 065 040 040 062 060 060
0272440 067 040 172 143 141 164 012 055 162 055 170 162 055 170 162 055
0272460 170 040 040 040 061 040 142 151 156 040 040 040 040 040 040 040
0272500 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040
*
0272560 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 142 151 156 040 040 040 040 040 040
0272600 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040
*
0272660 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 067 071 071 040
0272700 106 145 142 040 061 065 040 040 062 060 060 067 040 172 143 155
0272720 160 012 055 162 055 170 162 055 170 162 055 170 040 040 040 061
0272740 040 142 151 156 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040
0272760 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040
*
0273040 040 040 142 151 156 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040
0273060 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 040
*
0273140 040 040 040 040 040 040 040 067 071 060 040 106 145 142 04

[Suraj K Sankari]

Hi,

All users are facing the same ?
If not then logout from the server and login again.

Suraj

[Andrew Scott_3]

Yes, this affects every user on the box, even root.

And yes, the power cord is plugged in. ;-)

[Hein van den Heuvel · Accepted solution]

I think that observing the same effect in ps and ls is critical. It absolves both, and points to the systems.

I suspect that the following paper holds the key (but I have not finished reading it)


http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-4118/longusername_white_paper_updated.pdf

Hein.

[Andrew Scott_3]

ps exhibits similar behavior.

[Andrew Scott_3]

Bingo!

lugadmin -d 8

That fixed it. Apparently whenever I enabled long user/group names, the default display length got set to something absurd. Odd I didn't see this kind of behavior on any other machines, as I've enabled long user/group names on everything I have.

Thanks for the point in the right direction!

[Dennis Handly]

>od -b pukes out all the 040 codes for spaces.

(You might want to use xd(1) and get it in hex. 0x20 for space)