Jason McIntyre <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Sep 02, 2021 at 08:56:29AM +0000, Job Snijders wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 02, 2021 at 07:23:26AM +0100, Jason McIntyre wrote: > > > > .Ar time > > > > -can be integer or decimal numbers. > > > > +are positive integer or real (decimal) numbers, with an optional > > > > > > can you have a negative timeout? > > > > Negative values are not permitted > > > > $ timeout -- -1 /bin/ls > > timeout: invalid duration: Undefined error: 0 > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Job > > > > sorry, i wasn;t totally clear: i understand that negative values are not > permitted. but do we have to say it? i mean, you couldn;t expect to run > a command with a negative timeout, right? > > the whole phrasing about what the timeout is is very precise, but hard > to understand. i want to simplify it. so if no one could logically > expect a negative timeout to work, why say it? > > i.e. the current man page does not say it. so i think the proposed > change is not good.
i agree. it is obvious that a timeout, being a duration, is positive, and does not need to be described.
