Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:16:47 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: Manish Jain <bourne.identity@hotmail.com> Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: A request to segregate man pages for shell built-ins Message-ID: <20171025151647.b1a1d512.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <VI1PR02MB1200817E0E2CDD2A2A42E1A5F6440@VI1PR02MB1200.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com> References: <VI1PR02MB1200817E0E2CDD2A2A42E1A5F6440@VI1PR02MB1200.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com>
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On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 02:23:23 +0000, Manish Jain wrote: > But I run into roughly the same weather with shell built-ins, most of > which do not have their own man page. 'man set' rather blandly throws up > the man page for the shell, and it takes an immense effort to glean the > relevant information. > > Is it not possible to create separate man pages for the shell built-ins > too ? Or at least ensure that invoking the built-in with --help gets the > necessary information ? The key problem is that different shells might have a builtin with the same name, but different syntax or behaviour. That's why you typically use "man sh" or "man csh" and then search for the builtin within that man page. > (Note : some built-ins (e.g. 'test') do have their own man pages) Well, test is a binary, a separate program, not a builtin. ;-) % which test /bin/test % which [ /bin/[ Of course, [ and test are actually one and the same binary. Keep in mind some shells also offer a builtin replacement for an existing binary. A good example is echo where a binary exists, but the C Shell has its own internal echo, while BASH uses the binary one: % which echo echo: shell built-in command. $ which echo /bin/echo In such a case, what should "man echo" show? -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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