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Date:      Fri, 29 May 2009 19:25:26 +1000 (EST)
From:      Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
To:        "Bruce A. Mah" <bmah@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        src-committers@FreeBSD.org, svn-src-all@FreeBSD.org, Ben Kaduk <minimarmot@gmail.com>, Zachary Loafman <zml@FreeBSD.org>, svn-src-head@FreeBSD.org, =?UTF-8?B?RGFnLUVybGluZyBTbcO4cmdyYXY=?= <des@des.no>
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r192908 - in head: share/man/man9 sys/conf sys/kern sys/sys
Message-ID:  <20090529192129.B5886@delplex.bde.org>
In-Reply-To: <4A1EC5FA.50601@freebsd.org>
References:  <200905271636.n4RGasNe003922@svn.freebsd.org> <47d0403c0905271005t7f57f9b9h3d0721bbb1fbedc2@mail.gmail.com> <86tz35qlrw.fsf@ds4.des.no> <4A1EC5FA.50601@freebsd.org>

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On Thu, 28 May 2009, Bruce A. Mah wrote:

> If memory serves me right, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
>> Ben Kaduk <minimarmot@gmail.com> writes:
>>> Our man page style says that new sentences should start on new lines.
>>> (Since the '.' character is used for defining macros, and sometimes
>>> the processor can get confused.)
>>
>> That's not the reason - the reason is that it makes diffs easier to
>> read, which in turn makes it easier for our translators to keep the
>> translated man pages in sync.
>
> My understanding is that we do this to let groff manage the whitespace
> between sentences.  But your comment regarding diffs is quite valid.

It is both of these, but letting groff manage the sentence breaks is more
important since it is related to the output style.

Bruce
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