What I don't understand is why in the two most popular Unix flavors we have not got something like a json list output or something else that is parsable.
Is it really that difficult to add --json as a flag?
i think it boils down to then is dependencies needed to parse the json, coupled with the fact that glob syntax already covers iterating over the files regardless of characters used in the filename.
there are other tools than `ls` with their soul purpose to list files; some have "improved" features than ls, ect
similarlly from above (and well said btw, even what is not quoted):
> I do know that when I'm scripting, I'm generally wrapping what I do by hand, in a file. I'm codifying my decisions with ifs and such, but I'm using the same tools that I use by hand
a lot of us do similar and we know/expect the ins and outs; and all it takes to break our scripts is some edge case we never thought of. we are fortunate that our keyboard layouts are basically ascii; other languages are less fortunate. now introduce open source community driven software where an ls escaped bash code deletes somebodys home directory (as ls was parsed and an edge case of some users files cause some obscure "fun" times). an edge case is still painful..
and finally, sometimes its better elevating said bash script to python (or awk), ect. just depends on the situation and level of complexity of logic
Globs don't help much when I want file attributes and sizes. Yeah I can pipe to something that can do it, but it would be nice to just get filenames, attrs, size, dates in a json array as output.
Look ls is one of the most basic and natural Unix commands. Make it modern and useful.
Bash gibberish is fun for gatekeeping scripting neckbeards, but it's not what a proper OS should have.
the thing with the coreutils is they provide basic core functionality; you dont need bash on your system - `ls` is not bash (and then you still end up with busybox where json still would not be part of ls). add more utilities to your system to do more complex logic; ive used similar apps to this in the past: https://github.com/kellyjonbrazil/jc
there's also using zero terminiated lines in ls with `--zero`; then piping that to a number of apps which also support similar (read,xargs,ect)
might also checkout powershell on linux which may suite your needs where instead of string manipulation, everything is a class object
Is it really that difficult to add --json as a flag?