bug#69929: Can grep -q report matches in incomplete lines?

[Gary Johnson]

On 2024-03-24, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 2024-03-24 06:06, David G. Pickett wrote:
> >  Perhaps the man page should warn users that such last lines are ignored.
> 
> They aren't ignored. And the documentation already covers this issue,
> on its very first page:
> 
> https://www.gnu.org/software/grep/manual/html_node/Introduction.html
> 
> This says, "If the final byte of an input file is not a newline, grep
> silently supplies one."
> 
> I doubt whether this minor issue should be covered in the man page,
> as it is merely a brief summary of the documentation.

I would call the man page a _concise_ summary of the behavior of the
topic program or function, but I don't think it should be an
abridged summary.  It should be complete.  There should not be any
feature or behavior of the program or function completely missing
from the man page.  Other documentation may expand upon and further
explain behavior, but it should not contain the only mention of some
behavior.

Exceptions may be made for larger, more complicated programs such
as gnuplot, make or gdb, that do require a full manual apart from
a man page, but grep is small enough in concept that it shouldn't
require the user to read anything outside of the man page.

My unsolicited $0.02.

Regards,
Gary