Re: du feature request

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > I would like to request a feature to be added to the 'du'
   > command:
   > 
   > a command line switch to sort output by directory name or by size
   > of directory

   Why?  What can we add to du that can't already be done by
   pipelining du output into sort?

Because it is useful.  As another poster suggested, adding such a
feature to sort might make the most sense though instead of adding it
to du directly.

Many things options that coreutils provide could be done using pipes,
but they aren't, since they are commonly used, and are useful to
users.  A good example is `ls -lr', this could be easily done using
`ls -l|tac'.

It is not very useful to disgard ideas based on "philosophy", if it is
useful, doesn't cause a total headache to add, and someone is willing
to implement the idea, then there are no good reasons why it shouldn't
be added.

Cheers