exa

exa copied to clipboard

exa --icons sends icons across the pipe. If there was an --icons=WHEN option, icons could be disabled when being piped similarly to --color

It should at least default to using the same value as --color

--icons=WHEN would be ideal indeed.

In #905, another user suggests disabling --classify/-F options as well. I’m not sure about it though, but I guess it can be considered as a cosmetic option that makes no sense in a redirected output too.

• ls on macOS has classifiers on by default. However, these are not displayed when piped.
• ls on Ubuntu (ubuntu:latest Docker image) has classifiers off by default.

In both cases, having ls -F show them both in stdout and piped output. I suppose it comes down to compatibility of keeping these or usability and hiding these.

I think the WHEN approach for both --icons and --classify would be superb!