Re: CVS commit: src/bin/dd

[Valery Ushakov <uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost>]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 10:55:27 +0000, Valery Ushakov wrote:

> Module Name:	src
> Committed By:	uwe
> Date:		Mon Jan 26 10:55:27 UTC 2026
> 
> Modified Files:
> 	src/bin/dd: dd.1
> 
> Log Message:
> dd(1): touch up markup
> 
> 
> To generate a diff of this commit:
> cvs rdiff -u -r1.39 -r1.40 src/bin/dd/dd.1

Please, can a native speaker massage the text for `oflag`:

  The default value is creat, which must be explicitly added in oflag
  if this option is used in order to output to a nonexistent file

It is just too damn confusing to parse right on the first try.  Spare
a thought for the proverbial despearate sysadmin fixing an emergency
at 3am.

The porblem, I guess is that the man page seems to be using "operand"
for `foo=...` and "option" for values in the "..." part of an operand
and here "this option" seems to refer to oflag= (and should be "this
operand"), not to the "creat" (the only possible referent for "this"
if "option" in "this option" is read consistently with the rest of the
manpage).

Anyway, help is appreciated...

-uwe