Bug 30618

Summary:	ediff man page incomplete
Product:	Documentation	Reporter:	Mark Stosberg <mark>
Component:	Books & Articles	Assignee:	Giorgos Keramidas <keramida>
Status:	Closed FIXED
Severity:	Affects Only Me
Priority:	Normal
Version:	Latest
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description Mark Stosberg 2001-09-16 23:30:00 UTC

	Hello! I just discovered and tried to use the nice GNU sdiff utility. A primary feature 
of this utility is it's ability to interactively work with file differences. However, the
documentation (man sdiff) does not explain any of the commands that are used interactively. I found
that there are explained on the GNU site though: 
http://www.gnu.org/manual/diffutils/html_chapter/diff_9.html#SEC59

I'm not sure whether this is a GNU distribution bug or a FreeBSD bug. I'm sorry if I'm posted this
report in th wrong place. 

Thanks for the great OS. :)  -mark

Comment 1 Giorgos Keramidas 2001-09-16 23:45:33 UTC

mark@summersault.com <mark@summersault.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm not sure whether this is a GNU distribution bug or a FreeBSD bug. I'm
> sorry if I'm posted this report in th wrong place.

The documentation of sdiff does not include a manpage that describes the
merging commands, because GNU people seem to prefer the `info' format for
documenting their programs.  You can find the documentation for merging with
sdiff by reading up:

	% info '(diff)'

Read the node ``Interactive Merging''.  It does have what you want :-)

I guess, now this PR can be closed.

-giorgos

Comment 2 Mark Stosberg 2001-09-17 04:26:11 UTC

Thanks for the pointer Giorges. I also figured out that if I try
"h" once I've started the program interactively, that will give me what I
want, too. What about updating the man page to tell people they should
read the "info" page for more information? I'm familiar with the info
system, but that just didn't occur to me.

   -mark

On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:

> mark@summersault.com <mark@summersault.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not sure whether this is a GNU distribution bug or a FreeBSD bug. I'm
> > sorry if I'm posted this report in th wrong place.
>
> The documentation of sdiff does not include a manpage that describes the
> merging commands, because GNU people seem to prefer the `info' format for
> documenting their programs.  You can find the documentation for merging with
> sdiff by reading up:
>
> 	% info '(diff)'
>
> Read the node ``Interactive Merging''.  It does have what you want :-)
>
> I guess, now this PR can be closed.
>
> -giorgos
>

http://mark.stosberg.com/

Comment 3 Giorgos Keramidas freebsd_committer

2001-12-08 05:00:23 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-doc->keramida

I'm going to update sdiff's manpage from its info docs.

Comment 4 Giorgos Keramidas freebsd_committer

2002-12-14 23:59:05 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->closed

I've added a pointer to the info documentation in revision 1.2 of 
src/gnu/usr.bin/sdiff/sdiff.1,v 

Thanks for submitting this bug report!