On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, David Laight wrote:
> > In that case, the documentation should be fixed.  The following patch
> > to the printf(1) man page might help, but a complete fix should involve
> > nearly all man pages in section 1.
> 
> I disagree, repeating that information in all the man pages is pointless
> and error prone.

Note that I have NOT suggested adding lots of information to all the
man pages.  If that's the idea that you disagree with, then I also
disagree with it.

I have suggested adding a little bit of information to almost all the
section 1 man pages: specifically, adding "[--]" to the synopsis of all
relevant man pages.  This should be in conjunction with adding much more
information to intro(1).

When I sent that patch to printf(1), I should have emphasised that such
a patch is my second last choice: better than doing nothing, but much
worse than fixing intro(1) properly and adding "[--]" to almost all
relevant synopsis sections.

> intro(1) should probably describe some of what is in:
> 
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/xbd_chap12.html

Yes, I agree.

--apb (Alan Barrett)