From owner-cvs-all Thu May 10 0: 6:30 2001 Delivered-To: cvs-all@freebsd.org Received: from whale.sunbay.crimea.ua (whale.sunbay.crimea.ua [212.110.138.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C2F7237B423; Thu, 10 May 2001 00:06:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from ru@whale.sunbay.crimea.ua) Received: (from ru@localhost) by whale.sunbay.crimea.ua (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f4A769D12159; Thu, 10 May 2001 10:06:09 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from ru) Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 10:06:09 +0300 From: Ruslan Ermilov To: John Baldwin Cc: Peter Pentchev , cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/share/man/man9 printf.9 Message-ID: <20010510100609.A9354@sunbay.com> Mail-Followup-To: John Baldwin , Peter Pentchev , cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org References: <20010507184754.G39862@ringworld.oblivion.bg> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from jhb@FreeBSD.org on Tue, May 08, 2001 at 11:21:15AM -0700 Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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 ... : : .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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message