Re: Can I divorce readlink(1) from stat(1) ?

[christos%astron.com@localhost (Christos Zoulas)]

In article <3880.1655748200%jacaranda.noi.kre.to@localhost>,
Robert Elz  <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost> wrote:
>Currently readlink(1) and stat(1) (and I do mean the man pages)
>have a very unhealthy relationship.
>
>They're currently bound together based upon the accident of
>their parentage - that is, there is no readlink.c, readlink
>the command is accomplished by using stat with a particular
>set of options.   That could easily have been done with a sh
>script, but instead is done by combining the two into one
>binary which tests argv[0] to decide what to do.
>
>That's all fine, and I am not proposing changing anything about
>the way the code works, or is implemented.
>
>But, the man page (there is currently just one for both) is a mess.
>Go read it (use either name, you get the same thing) and take a look.
>
>The two commands have an (almost) completely unrelated option sets,
>they are designed to do quite different things (even though stat can
>obviously be made to do what readlink does), and documenting them as
>if they were just minor variations on each other (like say, printf(3)
>and fprintf(3)) is just wrong.
>
>So, I'd like to give them each a man page of their own (they can each
>SEE ALSO the other, though the readink -> stat direction is the more
>important one for that).
>
>Any objections?

Go for it!

Thanks,

christos