Re: GNU make man page typo

[Paul Smith]

On Thu, 2021-09-02 at 20:37 +, John Marshall wrote:
> On 2 Sep 2021, at 06:40, Zach Petch wrote:
> > The second paragraph under DESCRIPTION reads,
> > 
> > > To prepare to use make, you must write a file called the makefile
> > that describes the relationships among files in your program, and
> > the states the commands for updating each file.
> 
> The same text was previously in make.texi but was updated (rather
> astonishingly) 30 years ago in 45fa41f:
> 
>  To prepare to use @code{make}, you must write a file called
>  the @dfn{makefile} that describes the relationships among files
> -in your program, and the states the commands for updating each file.
> +in your program and provides commands for updating each file.

I've applied this change to the man page, thanks!

Re: GNU make man page typo

[John Marshall]

On 2 Sep 2021, at 06:40, Zach Petch wrote:
The second paragraph under DESCRIPTION reads,

> To prepare to use make, you must write a file called the makefile that 
> describes the relationships among files in your program, and the states the 
> commands for updating each file.

The same text was previously in make.texi but was updated (rather 
astonishingly) 30 years ago in 45fa41f:

 To prepare to use @code{make}, you must write a file called
 the @dfn{makefile} that describes the relationships among files
-in your program, and the states the commands for updating each file.
+in your program and provides commands for updating each file.

John

Re: GNU make man page typo

[Philip Guenther]

On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 5:07 AM Zach Petch  wrote:

> This is minor in the grand scheme of things, but I noticed a typo in the
> man page for GNU make. In case it makes a difference, I was on a Mac
> running macOS Big Sur 11.5.2 when I came across the typo.
>
> The second paragraph under DESCRIPTION reads,
>
> > To prepare to use make, you must write a file called the makefile that
> describes the relationships among files in your program, and the states the
> commands for updating each file.
>
> It appears that the first use of "the" after the second comma should
> either be "then" or quite possibly should simply not exist at all. That
> portion of the sentence would then read either,
>
> > and then states the commands for updating each file
>
> or,
>
> > and states the commands for updating each file
>
> and would, at the very least, reduce the likelihood of people like myself
> (who need to read slowly and carefully to understand things like man pages)
> from getting temporarily tripped up by the wording of that line.
>
> I recognize that this is minor and somewhat pedantic, but I appreciate you
> taking the time to read this.
>

I'm pretty sure that it was a typo/thinko for "that states", making the
full sentence:

To prepare to use make, you must write a file called the makefile that
describes the relationships among files in your program and that states the
commands for updating each file.


I also think the second comma is incorrect ("comma splice") and suggest
removing it as seen above: even the 'Oxford comma' rule only applies to
lists of three or more items.

Philip Guenther