Bug 35606

Summary:	date(1) page doesn't say which clock(s) it sets.
Product:	Documentation	Reporter:	Gary W. Swearingen <swear>
Component:	Books & Articles	Assignee:	Tom Rhodes <trhodes>
Status:	Closed FIXED
Severity:	Affects Only Me
Priority:	Normal
Version:	Latest
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description Gary W. Swearingen 2002-03-06 23:40:01 UTC

The date(1) man page doesn't say which of the CMOS/motherboard and
CPU/OS clocks the program sets (it sets both), which is less than
helpful to those used to other operating systems (eg, Linux) where
the clocks may be set separately (which is considered a feature, not a
bug, by many who've thought about it much).  Despite what some long-
time Unix SA my think, it's not obvious that "date" should change
the CMOS/motherboard clock too.

Of less importance, it also doesn't say which of the two clocks it
is reporting on when it displays "the time".  Few will guess wrong,
but man pages should not assume good guessing.
================

Fix: 

Explain that "date" sets both the CMOS/motherboard and the CPU/OS
clocks.  Explain that it only reports on the CPU/OS clock.
How-To-Repeat: n/a
================

Comment 1 Mike DeGraw-Bertsch 2002-04-04 11:03:43 UTC

Howdy,

This patch adds "The date utility displays the date and time read from 
the kernel clock.  When used to set the date and time, both the kernel 
clock and the CMOS clock are updated." as the second paragraph in the 
DESCRIPTION section.

   -Mike


--- date.1.old  Thu Apr  4 04:43:58 2002
+++ date.1      Thu Apr  4 05:02:51 2002
@@ -72,6 +72,12 @@
  .Nm
  will set the date and time or print it in a user-defined way.
  .Pp
+The
+.Nm
+utility displays the date and time read from the kernel clock.
+When used to set the date and time,
+both the kernel clock and the CMOS clock are updated.
+.Pp
  Only the superuser may set the date,
  and if the system securelevel (see
  .Xr securelevel 8 )

Comment 2 Gary W. Swearingen 2002-04-04 20:32:50 UTC

That's good.

Comment 3 Tom Rhodes freebsd_committer

2002-04-15 06:52:12 UTC

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

I'll take this one.

Comment 4 Tom Rhodes freebsd_committer

2002-04-15 19:20:18 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->patched

The supplied patch does not apply, I rebuilt it and applied to CURRENT, I 
will apply this to STABLE in a day.  Thanks!

Comment 5 Tom Rhodes freebsd_committer

2002-04-17 15:52:22 UTC

State Changed
From-To: patched->closed

A slightly different version of the patch committed to CURRENT and STABLE, 
mainly just s/CMOS/hardware/ as requested by bde