Re: Question about list format

Peter Flynn (pflynn@curia.ucc.ie)
Thu, 8 Dec 94 11:39:30 EST

> >> Second, if it's true that the results should yield two columns, is it also
> >> possible to lay out three or more columns?
> >
> >Would be nice if someone implemented it, but the idea of columns is really
> >only a suggestion, not mandatory.

Chris writes:

> It would seem like that would be more easily (and cleanly) done using tables.
> If you really do want to be able to specify the number of columns, then
> perhaps your application IS a table, not a directory listing. :^)

Quite right, but I think the application the writer had in mind was
where you have a long column of very short entries (perhaps generated
on the fly in a script) and you want them snaked into multiple columns,
so you find the width of the longest line, divvy it up into the screen
width and work out how many cols you can squeeze the list into, then
chop the list and fold into columns.

Tables imples that the values across a row are in some way related to
each other. This is not necessarily true of snaked columns.

///Peter