[PATCH 1/4] lib/hexdump.c: Allow 64 bytes per line

[Alastair D'Silva]

> -----Original Message-----
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> Sent: Friday, 12 April 2019 11:48 PM
> To: Alastair D'Silva <alastair at au1.ibm.com>
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> Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] lib/hexdump.c: Allow 64 bytes per line
> 
> On Wed 2019-04-10 13:17:17, Alastair D'Silva wrote:
> > From: Alastair D'Silva <alastair at d-silva.org>
> >
> > With modern high resolution screens, we can display more data, which
> > makes life a bit easier when debugging.
> 
> I have quite some doubts about this feature.
> 
> We are talking about more than 256 characters per-line. I wonder if such a
> long line is really easier to read for a human.

It's basically 2 separate panes of information side by side, the hexdump and
the ASCII version.

I'm using this myself when dealing with the pmem labels, and it works quite
nicely.

> 
> I am not expert but there is a reason why the standard is 80 characters
per-
> line. I guess that anything above 100 characters is questionable.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length
> somehow confirms that.
> 
> Second, if we take 8 pixels per-character. Then we need
> 2048 to show the 256 characters. It is more than HD.
> IMHO, there is still huge number of people that even do not have HD
display,
> especially on a notebook.

The intent is to make debugging easier when dealing with large chunks of
binary data. I don't expect end users to see this output.

-- 
Alastair D'Silva           mob: 0423 762 819
skype: alastair_dsilva     msn: alastair at d-silva.org
blog: http://alastair.d-silva.org    Twitter: @EvilDeece