bug#14976: [patch] use semicolons in option descriptions, not periods

2013-08-03 Thread Benno Schulenberg

Hello Pádraig,

On Fri, Aug 2, 2013, at 10:11, Pádraig Brady wrote:
 On 08/01/2013 08:56 PM, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
  A semicolon is a sentence separator too; it just avoids the need for
  a capital starter letter and a finishing period.
 
 Well generally there should be some tenuous relationship
 between the ; delimited sentences

True.  But as the phrases all describe aspects of the same option,
there is in my opinion always some relationship between them,
which could be expressed with where or however or something.

Attached patch does some more semicolon substitutions, of periods
I overlooked the first time.  It also does more indentation adjustments,
and adds some parentheses around equivalent short options for clarity.

It also removes the phrase and do not dereference symbolic links from
the 'ls -d' option, because 1) to be correct it would have to add unless
-H or -L etcera, but such precision is something for the manual; 2) the
phrase is not given for -F nor -l either, for which it is also valid.

Regards,

Benno

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - The way an email service should be

From 2ebb239420ac78736415e8b2414ed57136b0ca7e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benno Schulenberg bensb...@justemail.net
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2013 10:38:12 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] doc: more semicolons instead of periods in option descriptions

Also slightly rephrase some descriptions for extra clarity, and
add more consistent indentation.

* src/df.c (usage): Semicolon, no final period.
* src/du.c (usage): Likewise, plus indentation and clarifying words.
* src/ls.c (usage): Semicolon, rephrasings, added parentheses for
clarity, indentation.
* src/rm.c (usage): Semicolons.
---
 src/df.c |6 +++---
 src/du.c |   12 ++--
 src/ls.c |   38 ++
 src/rm.c |4 ++--
 4 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 31 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/df.c b/src/df.c
index e018064..c2c390e 100644
--- a/src/df.c
+++ b/src/df.c
@@ -1233,9 +1233,9 @@ or all file systems by default.\n\
 
   fputs (_(\
   -a, --all include dummy file systems\n\
-  -B, --block-size=SIZE  scale sizes by SIZE before printing them.  E.g.,\n\
-   '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes.\n\
-   See SIZE format below.\n\
+  -B, --block-size=SIZE  scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; e.g.,\n\
+   '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes;\n\
+   see SIZE format below\n\
   --total   produce a grand total\n\
   -h, --human-readable  print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)\
 \n\
diff --git a/src/du.c b/src/du.c
index b8aba0b..a265b10 100644
--- a/src/du.c
+++ b/src/du.c
@@ -298,9 +298,9 @@ Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.\n\
   fragmentation, indirect blocks, and the like\n\
 ), stdout);
   fputs (_(\
-  -B, --block-size=SIZE  scale sizes by SIZE before printing them.  E.g.,\n\
-   '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes.\n\
-   See SIZE format below.\n\
+  -B, --block-size=SIZE  scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; e.g.,\n\
+   '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes;\n\
+   see SIZE format below\n\
   -b, --bytes   equivalent to '--apparent-size --block-size=1'\n\
   -c, --total   produce a grand total\n\
   -D, --dereference-args  dereference only symlinks that are listed on the\n\
@@ -338,9 +338,9 @@ Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.\n\
   directory, or any of its subdirectories\n\
   --time=WORD   show time as WORD instead of modification time:\n\
   atime, access, use, ctime or status\n\
-  --time-style=STYLE  show times using style STYLE:\n\
-  full-iso, long-iso, iso, +FORMAT\n\
-  FORMAT is interpreted like 'date'\n\
+  --time-style=STYLE  show times using STYLE, which can be:\n\
+full-iso, long-iso, iso, or +FORMAT;\n\
+FORMAT is interpreted like in 'date'\n\
 ), stdout);
   fputs (_(\
   -X, --exclude-from=FILE  exclude files that match any pattern in FILE\n\
diff --git a/src/ls.c b/src/ls.c
index f3c3a1b..8bb3df9 100644
--- a/src/ls.c
+++ b/src/ls.c
@@ -4769,10 +4769,9 @@ Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.\n\
 ), stdout);
   fputs (_(\
   -C list entries by columns\n\
-  --color[=WHEN] colorize the output.  WHEN defaults to 'always'\n\
-   or can be 'never' or 'auto'; more info below\n\
-  -d, --directorylist directory entries instead of contents,\n\
-   and do not dereference symbolic links\n\
+  --color[=WHEN] colorize the 

bug#14976: [patch] use semicolons in option descriptions, not periods

2013-08-03 Thread Pádraig Brady
On 08/03/2013 11:33 AM, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
 
 Hello Pádraig,
 
 On Fri, Aug 2, 2013, at 10:11, Pádraig Brady wrote:
 On 08/01/2013 08:56 PM, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
 A semicolon is a sentence separator too; it just avoids the need for
 a capital starter letter and a finishing period.

 Well generally there should be some tenuous relationship
 between the ; delimited sentences
 
 True.  But as the phrases all describe aspects of the same option,
 there is in my opinion always some relationship between them,
 which could be expressed with where or however or something.
 
 Attached patch does some more semicolon substitutions, of periods
 I overlooked the first time.  It also does more indentation adjustments,
 and adds some parentheses around equivalent short options for clarity.

All that looks good.

 It also removes the phrase and do not dereference symbolic links from
 the 'ls -d' option, because 1) to be correct it would have to add unless
 -H or -L etcera, but such precision is something for the manual; 2) the
 phrase is not given for -F nor -l either, for which it is also valid.

So the change is:

 -  -d, --directorylist directory entries instead of contents,
 -   and do not dereference symbolic links
 +  -d, --directorylist just names of directories, not their 
contents

So I was wondering why that clarification was added.
I guess that it's obvious from the output for -l and -F
that the symlink is being operated on:

 $ ls -iF lsrc
 4202161 lsrc@
 $ ls -il lsrc
 4202161 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 ... lsrc - src

whereas with -d it's not:

 $ ls -id lsrc
 4202161 lsrc

Also I don't like the just names in the new description as
it might imply that it overrides -l or something.
So I was thinking instead to change to:

-d, --directorylist directory entries instead of contents,
 -   and do not dereference symbolic links
 +   and by default do not dereference symlinks

thanks!
Pádraig.