From: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:41:47 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Specify a precision for the length of a subject string
Message-ID: <877h1nwrok.fsf@catnip.gol.com>
In-Reply-To: <20111221145352.GB13097@llunet.cs.wisc.edu>

Nathan Panike <nwp@cs.wisc.edu> writes:
>> > $ git log --pretty='%h %30s' d165204 -1
>> 
>> In C's formatted output this syntax denotes a minimum field width, not a
>> precision, so it will probably be surprising to many people.
>
> C semantics are already broken because (from git-log(1))
>
> "If you add a - (minus sign) after % of a placeholder, line-feeds that
> immediately precede the expansion are deleted if and only if the placeholder
> expands to an empty string."
>
> rather than indicating justification of the field.

There's no reason to make it _worse_ though...

For your desired feature, why not just use the C printf syntax for this
functionality, a leading dot before the max length?  E.g. "%.30s".

-miles

-- 
Youth, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum,
Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a
living Homer.