I agree entirely. While man(1) is great, which(1) is also an essential
tool. Learn to love it.
paul
On 20/09/2008, at 7:27 PM, Paul de Weerd wrote:
On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:51:45PM +0000, ropers wrote:
| 2008/9/20 Ingo Schwarze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
| > In OpenBSD, most shell builtins and shell command aliases do not
have
| > their own man page or man page symlink. Such symlinks should not
be
| > added: Many shells have similar builtins, so which shell's man page
| > would you link?
|
| Would it be useful to have man pages for built-ins, but make those
man
| pages disambiguation pages that explain that the command in question
| is a shell built-in command, and how to find the relevant info on the
| respective shell's main man page?
|
| Another idea would be to make man look at $SHELL and serve up a
| relevant man page on that basis. This would require adding that logic
| to man though.
I think it's an education / experience issue.
If you know a command to be an alias or a builtin, you should know not
to go look for a manpage for that command. Of course, the question
then arrises .. how do you know wether a command is an alias or
builtin ? The fact that a manpage is missing for a certain command
should be a big hint (in OpenBSD base, that is), but for certainty
there's still which(1) and type (an alias to a builtin, at least in
ksh(1)). After learning a command is builtin, the user can then read
the shells manpage and search for the command in the manpage text.
Users unfamiliar with the above are probably somewhat new to the
environment and should therefore consult a book on UNIX systems.
Cheers,
Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd
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