On Jul 15 21:46:21, [email protected] wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 07:53:04PM +0200, Jan Stary wrote:
> > Some of the manpages, e.g. crontab(1),
> > markup the folklore phrase
> >
> > named file, or standard input
> > if the pseudo-filename `-' is given
> >
> > as
> >
> > named file, or standard input
> > if the pseudo-filename
> > .Sq Fl
> > is given.
> >
> > Is this correct semantic markup? IMHO not:
> > it just abuses the fact that the flags (Fl)
> > happen to start with a dash; but that's not
> > what is meant here; this is not a flag;
> > it is the literal dash that is recognized
> > in place of a filename.
> >
> > So I believe it should be simply
> >
> > .Sq -
> >
> > Right?
> >
> > The diff below replaces those occurences
> > that a grep revealed for me in /usr/share/man;
> > Another grep reveals that most other manpages
> > actually use ".Sq -".
> >
> > I left out oldrdist(1) and shutdown(8)
> > where it _is_ actually a flag
> > and the code processes it as such.
> >
> > Jan
> >
>
> ok, i agree with this. Fl seems wrong. however there's some ambiguity,
> for me anyway - do oldrdist and shutdown actually process "-"
> differently, or do the manuals talk about them differently?
>
> for oldrdist, "-" is actually the argument to -f. so it's not an option,
> as far as i can see. just the manual seems to blur things by documenting
> "If either the -f or `-' option is not specified", whereas above, the
> text suggests "-f-" or "-f -" is how it would work.
You are right: the `-' is actually an argument to -f,
and the manpage wording just confuses things by talking
about "the `-' option". BTW, it uses ".Dq" everywhere else.
Index: oldrdist.1
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/usr.bin/oldrdist/oldrdist.1,v
retrieving revision 1.20
diff -u -p -u -p -r1.20 oldrdist.1
--- oldrdist.1 3 Sep 2011 22:59:07 -0000 1.20
+++ oldrdist.1 15 Jul 2013 21:38:51 -0000
@@ -69,11 +69,9 @@ is
the standard input is used.
.El
.Pp
-If either the
-.Fl f
-or
-.Sq Fl
-option is not specified, the program looks first for
+If the
+.Ar distfile
+is not specified, the program looks first for
.Dq Pa distfile ,
then
.Dq Pa Distfile
> similarly, look at cat(1):
>
> If file is a single dash (`-') or absent, cat reads from the
> standard input.
>
> no mention of "-" in SYNOPSIS.
Yes; here it does not suggest that `-' is an option,
just that it is recognized as a special value for `file'
(which is described in SYNOPSIS).
Incidentaly, it uses
.Pq Sq \&-
Why cannot this be just
.Pq Sq -
?
> but shutdown(8), which lists "-" in
> SYNOPSIS:
>
> If `-' is supplied as an option, the warning message is read
> from standard input.
>
> so, it looks like oldrdist and shutdown are just talking about "-"
> differently to other manuals, but not behaving differently to other
> apps. i.e. we should tweak oldrdist and shutdown too.
shutdown code actually recognizes `-' as a getopt case:
it is technically an option, meaning "do not expect the message
on the commandline, read it from stdin instead".
