Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 10:06:09 +0300 From: Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org> To: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Peter Pentchev <roam@orbitel.bg>, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/share/man/man9 printf.9 Message-ID: <20010510100609.A9354@sunbay.com> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.010508112115.jhb@FreeBSD.org>; from jhb@FreeBSD.org on Tue, May 08, 2001 at 11:21:15AM -0700 References: <20010507184754.G39862@ringworld.oblivion.bg> <XFMail.010508112115.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
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On Tue, May 08, 2001 at 11:21:15AM -0700, John Baldwin wrote:
>
> On 07-May-01 Peter Pentchev wrote:
> > On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 08:35:29AM -0700, John Baldwin wrote:
> >>
> >> On 07-May-01 Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> >> > ru 2001/05/07 05:48:39 PDT
> >> >
> >> > Modified files:
> >> > share/man/man9 printf.9
> >> > Log:
> >> > A bit of markup and spelling fixes.
> >>
> >> Err, NULL (for pointers) is capitalized, but I thought the nul char was just
> >> that: nul. No caps or anything. Also, this manpage was up for review on
> >> -doc
> >> for a week, it would have been nice if you had made suggestions then.
> >
> > fgrep -B 2 -A 1 -w NUL /usr/src/usr.bin/find/find.1
> >
> > It prints the pathname of the current file to standard output, followed by an
> > .Tn ASCII
> > .Tn NUL
> > character (character code 0).
>
> NUL isn't a trademark of a company, so the markup of this manpage already isn't
> a stellar example. :)
>
mdoc(7) manpage postulates:
: Trade Names (or Acronyms and Type Names)
^^^^^^^^^^^
:
: The trade name macro prints its arguments in a smaller font. Its
: intended use is to imitate a small caps fonts for uppercase acronyms.
:
: Usage: .Tn <symbol> ...
:
: .Tn DEC DEC
: .Tn ASCII ASCII
> > There are other examples all over the source tree: bin/dd, usr.bin/lex,
> > usr.bin/telnet, usr.bin/tr, usr.bin/what, usr.bin/xargs, libexec/rexecd,
> > libexec/rshd, contrib/bc, contrib/libio/dbz, contrib/ncurses,
> > gnu/usr.bin/grep,
> > and I may have missed some ;)
> >
> > And it's not just FreeBSD - in every ASCII table I've seen, the special
> > characters' names are in all caps.
>
> ASCII table != text in a document such as a book or manual page. K&R uses
> "null character" in fact. There is a split in the manpages that does favor NUL
> over nul IIRC, but just because something is common doesn't mean it is right. :)
> It seems from the K&R example that both are wrong in fact. As Garrett points
> out, NULL is a C-specific pointer value as well (nil anyone?). It would seem
> that "null pointer" and "null character" are what should be used in texts.
>
K&R is right. Either "null character" or "NUL character" would be right.
See http://members.tripod.com/~plangford/asciifull.gif for a full list of
ASCII characters and their acronyms. (Source: www.asciitable.com).
Cheers,
--
Ruslan Ermilov Oracle Developer/DBA,
ru@sunbay.com Sunbay Software AG,
ru@FreeBSD.org FreeBSD committer,
+380.652.512.251 Simferopol, Ukraine
http://www.FreeBSD.org The Power To Serve
http://www.oracle.com Enabling The Information Age
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