Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 21:40:55 +0100 (CET) From: Per Hedeland <per@hedeland.org> To: trhodes@FreeBSD.org Cc: bde@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org, FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org, grog@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: docs/48125: [PATCH] Incorrect errno strings in intro(2) Message-ID: <200302172040.h1HKetTu004966@pluto.hedeland.org> In-Reply-To: <20030216174334.2cf7984a.trhodes@FreeBSD.org>
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Well, I think this issue taking on rather bigger proportions than it really merits, but anyway... Tom Rhodes <trhodes@FreeBSD.org> wrote: >Per Hedeland <per@hedeland.org> wrote: >> but I must really strongly disagree with your suggestion to change >> the code! The output of programs should not be changed for such >> "frivolous" reasons - e.g. there may well be scripts etc out there >> that, however unwisely, rely on the exact format of error messages to >> function correctly. Not to mention that using contractions in error >> messages is a long-standing Unix tradition, even in cases where the >> message doesn't originate in sys_errlist. > >however to my knowledge when Bell Labs originally started producing >UNIX the code was actually changed to match the documentation in many >instances. People with more knowledge of UNIX history would be better >to ask about that, though. I just remember reading something like that, >Bruce Evans (bde) or Greg Lehey (grog) come to mind as the correct >people >to ask. Whether correct or not, I don't really see the relevance of that. Of course I didn't suggest that code must *never* be changed to match documentation, only that code changes that may actually break things should not be done just to match someone's idea of "good writing style" for the man page. On the other hand, in this particular case the FreeBSD (or *BSD, I don't have another dialect to test) code might actually be a bit out-of-sync with the rest of the Unix family. A survey of two other Unices isn't exactly conclusive, and there's nothing to say that FreeBSD must be like everyone else, but anyway: Solaris 8: $ ./a.out bind: Cannot assign requested address RedHat 7.3: $ ./a.out bind: Cannot assign requested address FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE: $ ./a.out bind: Can't assign requested address The same difference exists for the other messages that are contractions in the FreeBSD sys_errlist[]. And with that "contribution" I will respectfully leave this discussion, letting the committers sort out what should be changed where and why. --Per To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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