From owner-freebsd-hackers  Sat Aug 28  0:57:26 1999
Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Received: from mpp.pro-ns.net (pppdsle70.mpls.uswest.net [216.160.23.70])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP
	id 0CAEB15233; Sat, 28 Aug 1999 00:57:22 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from mpp@mpp.pro-ns.net)
Received: (from mpp@localhost)
	by mpp.pro-ns.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id CAA93164;
	Sat, 28 Aug 1999 02:29:08 -0500 (CDT)
	(envelope-from mpp)
From: Mike Pritchard <mpp@mpp.pro-ns.net>
Message-Id: <199908280729.CAA93164@mpp.pro-ns.net>
Subject: Propose mdoc fix regarding ERRORS section
To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-doc@freebsd.org
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 02:29:08 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: phantom@cris.net
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL54 (25)]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

>Category:       docs
>Synopsis:       src/lib/libc/sys/*.2 misc patch pack
- first column in most ERROR lists is too narrow. Normalize their width.

Right now we have a problem with our on-line man pages.  Most were
written when the length of errno's were only 6 - 8 characters long.
Now we have errno's that can be up to 15 characters long.  Many
of our man pages have the following mdoc instruction (or something
similar) to ensure that the field width for the errno is appropriate:

.Bl -tag -width EBADFXXX

As things have progressed, sometimes the errno names have
become wider than the name specified in the .Bl macro.

Man pages can also specify:

.Bl -tag -width Er

Which will reserve enough space for the errno name based on what
width the Er macro specifies.  Right now it doesn't allocate enough
width to contain our largest errno's.  

I propose that we fix mdoc to allocate enough width when the second
form is specified, and then change all of the man pages to use that
format in the ERRORS section.

Suggestions/comments/etc welcome.

-Mike
--
Mike Pritchard
mpp@FreeBSD.org or mpp@mpp.pro-ns.net


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message