Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 14:30:00 +0100 From: Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> To: Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Alexey Zelkin <phantom@cris.net>, freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Propose mdoc fix regarding ERRORS section Message-ID: <19990829143000.E75050@catkin.nothing-going-on.org> In-Reply-To: <199908282135.QAA00714@mpp.pro-ns.net>; from Mike Pritchard on Sat, Aug 28, 1999 at 04:35:15PM -0500 References: <19990828212130.A6853@scorpion.crimea.ua> <199908282135.QAA00714@mpp.pro-ns.net>
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On Sat, Aug 28, 1999 at 04:35:15PM -0500, Mike Pritchard wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 28, 1999 at 02:29:08AM -0500, Mike Pritchard wrote:
> > >
> > > I propose that we fix mdoc to allocate enough width when the second
> > > form is specified, and then change all of the man pages to use that
> > > format in the ERRORS section.
>
> > I think second way is better. I am going to remake my patch.
> > As first step I did this patch. I used 15 because error name EADDRNOTAVAIL
> > is longest error name I've found. (yes, I know that length is
> > 13, but we also need some space between columns)
>
> The longest errno's are 15 characters in lenght (EPROTONOSUPPORT),
> so Er should use width 17. I'll format some man pages using this
> and see how they look.
Chaps, in all this, are we actually sure that the change is necessary?
This is quite a big change to ensure that things like
...
[EBADF] D is not a valid file or socket descriptor open
for reading.
[EFAULT] Buf points outside the allocated address space.
[EWORLDCOLLAPSINGAROUNDYOU]
The world is collapsing around your ears. Run for
the hills.
...
don't occur. And presumably we would need to redo this change every
time a longer error message is introduced.
Is the last example above (where the error value forces the description
down a line or too) so horrible that we need to 'fix' it? I don't
really care (and I don't have to do any of the work :-) ) but it does
strike me as being quite a big change for a small amount of visible
effect.
N
--
[intentional self-reference] can be easily accommodated using a blessed,
non-self-referential dummy head-node whose own object destructor severs
the links.
-- Tom Christiansen in <375143b5@cs.colorado.edu>
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