On 06/02/2026 05:45, Collin Funk wrote:
Hi,
Michael Daniels <[email protected]> writes:
It looks like a doctest fails when providing `configure` the
`--enable-install-program=kill,uptime` flag (per NEWS for v9.10).
```
./configure --enable-install-program=kill,uptime
...
make -j
...
make -j check
...
FAIL: tests/misc/usage_vs_refs
==============================
kill -s reference missing in texi
kill --signal reference missing in texi
kill -SIGNAL reference missing in texi
kill -l reference missing in texi
kill --list reference missing in texi
kill --table reference missing in texi
FAIL tests/misc/usage_vs_refs.sh (exit status: 1)
...
```
This occurs on Debian and NixOS, both on x86_64 using WSL.
I haven't tested on any other platforms.
I've attached test_suite.log (tarred and gzipped).
Thanks for the report.
I guess there is worse bugs to find out about right after a release. :)
Most shells have a builtin 'kill' command, so these links will get less
use.
The 'kill' documentation was formatted a bit differently than the other
programs, most likely because it serves two different purposes; listing
signals and actually killing programs.
I've attatched a patch after reorganizing it a bit so the anchors are
created. I haven't pushed it yet Pádraig in case you want to make any
changes and/or update the manual on gnu.org.
The patch looks good, though I'd merge in the attached
rather than special case -SIGNAL in the test.
I'll manually add anchors to the online manual for now.
Marking this bug as done.
thanks!
Padraig
From 2407463e942894cd37f21842d75eff812248dbcc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?P=C3=A1draig=20Brady?= <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2026 11:42:01 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] doc: to merge
don't special case -SIGNAL in test
---
doc/coreutils.texi | 1 +
tests/misc/usage_vs_refs.sh | 1 -
2 files changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index 3f90eed06..455930746 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -18361,6 +18361,7 @@ The program accepts the following options. Also see @ref{Common options}.
@table @samp
+@optAnchor{kill,-SIGNAL}
@optItem{kill,-s,}
@optItemx{kill,--signal,}
Specify the name or number of the signal to be sent.
diff --git a/tests/misc/usage_vs_refs.sh b/tests/misc/usage_vs_refs.sh
index 2d60184a4..6e5a43f21 100755
--- a/tests/misc/usage_vs_refs.sh
+++ b/tests/misc/usage_vs_refs.sh
@@ -24,7 +24,6 @@ longopts() { getopts $1 | cut -s -d'"' -f2; }
getopts() {
skip='--help|--version' # These refs treated specially
- skip="$skip|-SIGNAL" # This one comes after --signal
env "$1" --help |
grep -E '^( -| --)' | # find options
--
2.52.0
