From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org Received: from qmta05.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.48]:47831 "EHLO qmta05.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752342AbaG2QAH (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Jul 2014 12:00:07 -0400 Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 12:00:04 -0400 Message-Id: <201407291600.s6TG04TH024607@hobgoblin.ariadne.com> From: worley@alum.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) To: Karel Zak CC: kerolasa@iki.fi, util-linux@vger.kernel.org In-reply-to: <20140729074408.GO8533@x2.net.home> (kzak@redhat.com) Subject: Re: [PATCH] wall: wrap message header when it exceeds 79 characters References: <1406487666-19466-1-git-send-email-kerolasa@iki.fi> <20140729074408.GO8533@x2.net.home> Sender: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Hmmm... It seems to me that there's an interface issue. If you're *sure* that the message will always be consumed by a human, wrapping is the nice thing to do. But if the message will sometimes have to be extracted by an automaton, write the message without line breaks, because it's a lot easier for a human to visually reassemble a long line (wrapped by whatever the display container is) than it is for a program to discern that two lines are part of the same message. Dale