View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0000190 | 1003.1(2008)/Issue 7 | Shell and Utilities | public | 2009-12-03 02:27 | 2024-06-11 08:53 |
| Reporter | adelfino | Assigned To | ajosey | ||
| Priority | normal | Severity | Editorial | Type | Enhancement Request |
| Status | Closed | Resolution | Accepted As Marked | ||
| Name | Andrés Delfino | ||||
| Organization | |||||
| User Reference | |||||
| Section | man utility | ||||
| Page Number | 2930 | ||||
| Line Number | 96402 to 96404 (including both) | ||||
| Interp Status | --- | ||||
| Final Accepted Text | See 0000190:0000320 | ||||
| Summary | 0000190: Require environment variables and exit status information to man pages | ||||
| Description | I see the lack of information regarding the environment variables affecting a given utility, or the absence of exit status information as pretty irritating when writing shell scripts. Since UNIX utilities communicate with each other, I see the information about exit status really important. | ||||
| Desired Action | Change line 96402 to: The man utility shall write information about each of the name operands. If name is the name of a standard utility, man at a minimum shall write a message describing the syntax used by the standard utility, its options, operands, environment variables affecting its execution, and its list of exit status codes. | ||||
| Tags | issue8 | ||||
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The current rationale (96479-96490) states: It is recognized that the man utility is only of minimal usefulness as specified. The opinion of the standard developers was strongly divided as to how much or how little information man should be required to provide. They considered, however, that the provision of some portable way of accessing documentation would aid user portability. The arguments against a fuller specification were: • Large quantities of documentation should not be required on a system that does not have excess disk space. • The current manual system does not present information in a manner that greatly aids user portability. • A ‘‘better help system’’ is currently an area in which vendors feel that they can add value to their POSIX implementations. ---- This situation is not believed to have changed since it was written (although "a system that does not have excess disk space" might be better expressed as "a system with limited disk space"). |
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We agree that the changes are reasonable, but also believe that the man utiity is not required on embedded systems. Make the changes suggested in the Desired Action and also make the following changes: Add man to the set of User Portability Extension utilities by: 1. Add the UP mark to P2930, L96400, 2. Add man to the list on P28, L1019-1020 in sorted order. |
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With regard to note #319, " • Large quantities of documentation should not be required on a system that does not have excess disk space. • The current manual system does not present information in a manner that greatly aids user portability. • A ‘‘better help system’’ is currently an area in which vendors feel that they can add value to their POSIX implementations. ---- This situation is not believed to have changed since it was written (although "a system that does not have excess disk space" might be better expressed as "a system with limited disk space"). " I disagree with Nick's assessment of points 2 and 3. And maybe even point 1; the man page collections use up 150 MiB or so, and the shell utilities and system interfaces required by SUS probably take up less than 50 MiB. Even my phone has free space in excess of 2 GiB. Since systems vary both between vendors and over time, finding the correct man pages on-line for a given system is not easy. So not fully specifying man pages and the man command does hurt portability, or at least hampers development. In over 30 years, vendors have not come up with a better system. Just incompatible versions of man. (Even the Gnu "info" help system contains the same information as required by man, just in a different viewer and format. The same could be said for man pages in the web, so I don't see this as "different" or better.) It is time to stop crippling the man command, hoping vendors will come up with a far better system. Having a standard man command utility, and standard contents for the man pages for utilities and system interfaces, would be a boon to users and developers; as the reported said, its lack is irritating. |
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http://www.free-iphone-apps.com |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-12-03 02:27 | adelfino | New Issue | |
| 2009-12-03 02:27 | adelfino | Status | New => Under Review |
| 2009-12-03 02:27 | adelfino | Assigned To | => ajosey |
| 2009-12-03 02:27 | adelfino | Name | => Andrés Delfino |
| 2009-12-03 02:27 | adelfino | Section | => man utility |
| 2009-12-03 02:27 | adelfino | Page Number | => 2930 |
| 2009-12-03 02:27 | adelfino | Line Number | => 96402 to 96404 (including both) |
| 2009-12-03 17:12 | nick | Note Added: 0000319 | |
| 2009-12-03 17:25 | Don Cragun | Interp Status | => --- |
| 2009-12-03 17:25 | Don Cragun | Note Added: 0000320 | |
| 2009-12-03 17:25 | Don Cragun | Status | Under Review => Resolved |
| 2009-12-03 17:25 | Don Cragun | Resolution | Open => Accepted As Marked |
| 2009-12-03 17:27 | Don Cragun | Final Accepted Text | => See 0000190:0000320 |
| 2010-09-09 15:38 | Don Cragun | Tag Attached: tc1-2008 | |
| 2010-09-09 15:39 | Don Cragun | Tag Detached: tc1-2008 | |
| 2010-09-09 15:40 | Don Cragun | Tag Attached: issue8 | |
| 2010-09-09 15:41 | Don Cragun | Resolution | Accepted As Marked => Future Enhancement |
| 2011-07-08 16:00 | Don Cragun | Resolution | Future Enhancement => Accepted As Marked |
| 2011-07-08 16:00 | Don Cragun | Summary | Requiere environment variables and exit status information to man pages => Require environment variables and exit status information to man pages |
| 2011-07-09 01:37 | wpollock | Note Added: 0000889 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:20 |
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Note Added: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:24 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:24 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:25 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:26 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:27 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:27 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:27 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2011-07-10 04:28 |
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Note Edited: 0000890 | |
| 2019-12-20 12:04 | geoffclare | Status | Resolved => Applied |
| 2024-06-11 08:53 | agadmin | Status | Applied => Closed |
