>Number:         9705
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       meaning of .Dd in manpages is not totally clear
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    misc-bug-people (Misc Bug People)
>State:          open
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Mar 29 17:12:01 2000
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     John Hawkinson
>Organization:
	MIT
>Release:        NetBSD 1.4.2
>Environment:
	
System: NetBSD zorkmid.mit.edu 1.4.2 NetBSD 1.4.2 (ZORKMID) #10: Mon Mar 27 12:33:31 CST 2000 jhawk@zorkmid.mit.edu:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/ZORKMID i386


>Description:
	It's not 100% clear from mdoc(7) or mdoc.samples(7) just
what the date of a manpage (Dd) is supposed to mean. Obvious choices are:

a)	Last modification date
b)	Last significant modification date (skip it for typos)
c)	Date the manpage was written or drastically re-written.

	I think b) most accurately reflects current-practice.
>How-To-Repeat:
	
>Fix:
	
===================================================================
RCS file: share/man/man7/RCS/mdoc.samples.7,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -c -r1.1 -r1.2
*** share/man/man7/mdoc.samples.7	2000/03/30 00:57:45	1.1
--- share/man/man7/mdoc.samples.7	2000/03/30 01:04:52	1.2
***************
*** 579,585 ****
  macro is not present, the bottom left corner of the page
  will be ugly.
  .It Li \&.Dd month day, year
! The date should be written formally:
  .Pp
  .ne 5
  .Dl January 25, 1989
--- 579,586 ----
  macro is not present, the bottom left corner of the page
  will be ugly.
  .It Li \&.Dd month day, year
! The date of the last significant revision to the manual page;
! the date should be written formally:
  .Pp
  .ne 5
  .Dl January 25, 1989
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: