Suggest/Wish re. numbered backup

[Paul E Condon]

Suggestion/Wish in re. numbered backup (in use in cp and mv and
possible elsewhere):

When called on to rename a file with the .~N~ extension, the software
must search for prior numbered backups under the given filename. When
the largest number it finds is '9', it roles over to .~10~ . This we
know.

My suggestion is that the software also rename the earlier backup
files as follows: In each name, insert the digit zero (0) in front of
the digit [1-9].  This will preserve the correct display order of the
backups in a simple invocation of "ls -l" . This will make for a
more cleanly ordered display up to 99 backups. 

As a further suggestion, this idea can be extended to insert 99 zeros
in 99 files when the 100th backup is done. And, of course, 999 zeros
in 999 files when the 1000th backup is done, etc. The average cost of
executing these additions is, I think, very small, as the software is
already doing all the preliminary work of directory lookups to
accomplish its existing numbering behavior.

You might also consider having an option to number in hexidecimal, but
I prefer decimal.

Thanks for your good work.
-- 
Paul E Condon           
address@hidden