Christopher Ness wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote: > > You can access the online documentation using the 'info' command. The > > man page is created automatically from the 'uniq --help' output. It > > is really intended only as a quick option reference and includes a > > pointer to the full manual. > > > > info uniq > > There it is. I never thought the man pages would be crippled WRT info. > Which help system is prefered for GNU?
Neither should be "crippled" with respect to the other. GNU coding standards prefer documentation in info format. However other standards require man pages. I think both will be around for a long time. Also the programs itself contains online help with the --help option. That is joined to the program and should not be out of date with respect to it. The --help is a third source of information. My personal preference is that the man pages make great quick references. But man pages are not as good at being a user manual. The info pages make better user manuals. Therefore I like to see them them "tuned" to their own best strengths. In order to accomodate both the user manual is the info documentation. The man pages are generated from the --help output automatically using 'help2man'. That reduces the programmer work overhead considerably. Now the program, the --help, and the man pages are all in sync automatically. It is the info pages which still must be written the old fashioned way. But they are the most flexible way to create user manuals. More recently there has been a movement to convert to docbook format documentation. This has been met with mixed responses. Time will tell how docbook turns out. I think it is a little heavy and more tedious to use than texinfo but I do not have enough experience with docbook yet. Bob _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
