Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 22:03:07 +0000 From: bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.org To: bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: [Bug 235946] column(1): Fill order (with/without -x) is incorrectly documented Message-ID: <bug-235946-227@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
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https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D235946 Bug ID: 235946 Summary: column(1): Fill order (with/without -x) is incorrectly documented Product: Documentation Version: Latest Hardware: Any OS: Any Status: New Severity: Affects Only Me Priority: --- Component: Manual Pages Assignee: bugs@FreeBSD.org Reporter: dana@dana.is CC: doc@FreeBSD.org Created attachment 202276 --> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/attachment.cgi?id=3D202276&action= =3Dedit column(1) documentation fix The documentation for column(1) says that 'Rows are filled before columns' = and that the -x option 'Fill[s] columns before filling rows'. The language dates back to at least 4.4BSD, and it matches the names of the functions responsi= ble for the corresponding output modes in the source code. However, i don't thi= nk that most people would interpret that wording the way the original develope= rs apparently did: % printf '%s\n' aaa bbb ccc ddd eee | column -c24 aaa ccc eee bbb ddd % printf '%s\n' aaa bbb ccc ddd eee | column -xc24 aaa bbb ccc ddd eee To me, the default behaviour is clearly filling the columns first, whilst t= he -x behaviour is filling the rows first. The developers of the util-linux[1] and OpenBSD[2] implementations of colum= n(1) evidently agree, since their man pages now state that the default behaviour= is to fill columns first. I've attached a patch that changes the man page to bring it in line with util-linux and OpenBSD. When util-linux fixed their documentation, they also updated the source cod= e to match. OpenBSD did not, maybe because simply swapping the function names wo= uld make it very confusing to compare the source to other/historical BSDs. I've gone the OpenBSD route here, but i did add a comment about it. PS: Sorry if i've misunderstood anything; this is my first time submitting a bug/patch to FreeBSD directly. [1] https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/blob/2698f9ba887cb7e4a204ada72016b1c= 1192b17c1/text-utils/column.1 [2] https://github.com/openbsd/src/blob/c37de4bcf15ea51b5fae88c6b1911bf61532958= 6/usr.bin/column/column.1 --=20 You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.=
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