Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2017 09:10:12 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman <matthew@FreeBSD.org> To: Arthur Chance <freebsd@qeng-ho.org>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A request to segregate man pages for shell built-ins Message-ID: <f88bce52-b120-c9cf-05bf-3c99ab99c522@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <6f62db58-8220-0fe4-133b-410da2f58579@qeng-ho.org> References: <VI1PR02MB1200817E0E2CDD2A2A42E1A5F6440@VI1PR02MB1200.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com> <f88cd63e-3cbc-4463-5219-99d204742b85@FreeBSD.org> <6f62db58-8220-0fe4-133b-410da2f58579@qeng-ho.org>
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On 25/10/2017 08:40, Arthur Chance wrote: > On 25/10/2017 07:14, Matthew Seaman wrote: >> On 25/10/2017 03:23, Manish Jain wrote: >>> (Note : some built-ins (e.g. 'test') do have their own man pages) >> >> That's because there's a stand-alone test(1) as well as a shell built-in. >> >>> Is it not possible to create separate man pages for the shell built-ins >>> too ? Or at least ensure that invoking the built-in with --help gets the >>> necessary information ? >> >> I'm sure creating separate man pages is possible: it's just a question >> of someone stepping up and doing the work. > > "man builtin" suggests there might be a few problems in organising the > new pages. Some builtins work in both shells, others in only one, some > have external equivalents, others don't. Some builtins work differently > in the two shells. > > For example, do we have one page for echo or three: echo(bin), echo(sh) > and echo(csh)? /bin/echo has a single flag, the sh builtin has two and > the csh builtin mimics one or the other depending on a csh variable setting. > > Yes, it just needs someone to do the work but making the new pages > coherent and clear would take more effort than it first seems. > Indeed. In that case, I'd suggest thinking about how to arrange the man pages from the point of view of the person writing a shell script -- what's the most effective way for them to find the information they need? In the case of eg. echo(1), I'd be happy to see the existing page for the stand-alone echo refactored to cover all of the different flavours of echo -- the behaviour is much the same in most use cases -- plus some discussion on how the variants differ. Cheers, Matthew
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