Bug 35644

"Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@blarg.net> wrote:
> 
> >Number:         35644
> >Category:       docs
> >Synopsis:       lo(4) page presumes familiarity with printf.
> >Description:
> The lo(4) man page presumes familiarity with "printf" when it uses "%d"
> in two places.  Bad presumption.

At least the first usage ("lo%d") is idiomatic; almost all manual
pages (esp. those for drivers) in section 4 use it.  Grep'ing for "%d"
through sections 1, 4, 6, and 8 returns over 500 matches; some of
these are no doubt not what we're looking for, but many are.  I think
it's reasonable to assume that the reader can mentally replace "%d"
with "an integer".  I wouldn't object to this being documented in some
of the intro(X) manual pages, but I don't think it's wise to change
all the pages that use this notation.

Dima Dorfman <dima@trit.org> writes:

> I wouldn't object to this being documented in some
> of the intro(X) manual pages, but I don't think it's wise to change
> all the pages that use this notation.

The "to much work" argument is OK by me, though I think it's really a
nasty, ugly thing outside of sections 2 & 3 which can presume knowledge
of "C" while I'd like to hope that many users know nothing of it.

Documenting the esoteric symbol is a poor substitute for using a symbol
understood by almost everybody, as many will not read or remember it,
but I guess it's better than nothing.

As to where it's documented, it seems to me that the man(1) page would
be better than the intro(*) pages, but either will do OK.

Gary,

Is %d in man pages still esoteric for you? :-)

-- 
Maxim Konovalov

Comment 4 Maxim Konovalov 2006-04-14 21:12:45 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->closed

The submitter's email bounces.