Re: ls manpage incomplete

[Richard Guy Briggs]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 08:42:15PM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
> According to Richard Guy Briggs on 7/9/2009 2:57 PM:
> > The ls(1) manpage is incomplete.  Why?  No, I don't want to use info(1).
> > 
> > GNU coreutils 6.10                                    April 2008
> 
> Consider upgrading - the latest stable version is 7.4.
> 
> That said, the man pages are generated from --help output, which is
> necessarily compact.  What in particular do you think is missing, that
> will not be too lengthy for inclusion?  The GNU project favors info pages
> over man pages, whether or not you choose to read them.

I'm on Ubuntu Hardy, which lags a bit, but this is a standard problem
against many GNU project tools.  I'm running a number of .deb based
systems including Etch, Lenny, Sid, Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty and all have
the same problem.

The Bash and GCC manpages are long, but everything is there and
searchable without having to resort to info.  In particular, I was
looking for the file type bits output in the -l option to ls(1), which
should just "be there" in the manpage and not have to grovel through
info(1) or find a project documentation web page.  man(1) is a standard
tool across many unixes.  All the information should be there.  Info(1)
is a pet project of the GNU project.  IMHO info(1) sucks.  What's the
justification for putting incomplete information in the manpages that's
already available to another text tool on the same package?  Even Perl
has complete manpages for everything.

> Eric Blake             address@hidden

        slainte mhath, RGB

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