Man vs. Info: documenting the software
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From: Ivan Shmakov on 4 Feb 2010 09:08 >>>>> Stephane CHAZELAS <stephane_chazelas(a)yahoo.fr> writes: [...] > Same, instead of "man 3 printf" you can do "info libc --index-search > printf" (info libc printf works as well but gets you to another > printf related topic unfortunately), and you get the context > around. Again, same principle as a book. You look in the index of > your libc book for printf and are taken to the "formatted output" > section. > Or you can do "info coreutils printf" for the printf command (man 1 > printf). Thanks for the comments. These bits about the stand-alone Info invocation are particularly interesting to me because I don't use it at all, and thus don't know much about it. >> I said "GNU coding standards". Not "every last possible thing which >> GNU has ever specified". (That said: Consider "true --help" or >> "echo --version".) > $ true --help > Usage: /bin/true [ignored command line arguments] > or: /bin/true OPTION > Exit with a status code indicating success. > --help display this help and exit > --version output version information and exit Still I wonder, may it cause a clash with some standard? I've always thought that $ true ... and $ false ... are basically dumb plugs, designed to have no effect other than returning an exit code. > NOTE: your shell may have its own version of true, which usually > supersedes the version described here. Indeed. [...] > POSIX and LSB specifies that "echo --version" should output > "--version<LF>" (just as "echo -e" should output "-e<LF>" in > POSIX but not LSB). Given that the echo behavior may have subtle differences between implementations and standards, I'd generally tend to advice against its use and in favor of printf. -- FSF associate member #7257 |