Package: a2ps Version: 1:4.13b-5 Severity: normal
Problem: while browsing utils in 'dwww', I read about 'pdiff', did a test run, and was surprised that it sent four pages of output to the printer. Luckily the printer was off. Cause of surprise: vague docs. Details: % whatis pdiff pdiff (1) - produce a pretty comparison between files The verb 'produce' does not clearly distinguish that output goes to the printer. The man page says: % man pdiff | grep -nA 2 DESC Reformatting pdiff(1), please wait... 11:DESCRIPTION 12- Pretty print the differences between FILE1 and FILE2. 13- The verb 'print' may mean "send to standard output". It's common usage, as per these descriptions of common utils, none of which require a printer: % whatis wc whoami uname seq wc (1) - print the number of newlines, words, and bytes in files whoami (1) - print effective userid uname (1) - print system information seq (1) - print a sequence of numbers The 'pdiff' man page refers the user to a more thorough info page, but that info page has only the same text as the man page, right down to needlessly referring to a more thorough info page. The command line help is also the same text as the man page description: % pdiff --help | head -n 2 Usage: pdiff FILE1 FILE2 [-- A2PS-OPTIONS...] Pretty print the differences between FILE1 and FILE2. Hope this helps... -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.12-1-686 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) (ignored: LC_ALL set to C) Versions of packages a2ps depends on: ii libc6 2.3.5-6 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an ii libpaper1 1.1.14-3 Library for handling paper charact Versions of packages a2ps recommends: ii bzip2 1.0.2-10 high-quality block-sorting file co ii cupsys-bsd [lpr] 1.1.23-12 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - ii cupsys-client 1.1.23-12 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - ii psutils 1.17-19 A collection of PostScript documen ii wdiff 0.5-16 Compares two files word by word -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]