Won't this break simple scripts that parse netstat -r output by printing a particular column? That is, shouldn't we add metric as the final column?

Also the description of -W in the man page should be updated.

Won't this break simple scripts that parse netstat -r output by printing a particular column? That is, shouldn't we add metric as the final column?

wide columns (-W) are adjusted dynamically, users should not write scripts on -W.
That's why I didn't add metric column into -r without the wide flag.

Also the description of -W in the man page should be updated.

I will, Thank you!

Well, "should" and "does" are sadly not the same. We have some code in the base system which does exactly that:

usr.sbin/bsdinstall/scripts/netconfig_ipv6:ROUTER6=`netstat -Wrn -f inet6 | awk '/default/ {printf("%s\n", $2);}'`

IMO it's important to avoid reordering columns.

Oops, you're right.
IMHO, due to the nature of metric and the fact we didn't support it until now, it should not be the last column.
But I'm fine with not reordering it. so I will do as you suggested.
I really want to add metric to without w flag too. but expire column could be hidden if route don't have one.
That's why I didn't do it. But we really should do. :D

Sorry, I don't really understand why it is okay to reorder "expire"?

It's a uint32_t.

@markj: Here
It can be zero, therefore it will not get printed.
For this reason, expire should be the last column.

Also, it was broken until last month, when I fixed it.
So I'm almost sure nobody wrote an script for that. :D