# pedantry: is there a standard for what should be in the SYNOPSIS? 3 messages from 2017-11-21 to 2017-11-21. Participants: Robert P. J. Day, Jonathan Nieder. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/47269 ## Robert P. J. Day, 2017-11-21 14:49 Subject: pedantry: is there a standard for what should be in the SYNOPSIS? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.2.21.1711210925530.6795%40DESKTOP-1GPMCEJ ``` following up on an earlier question of mine, is there a standard for what options should be listed in either the SYNOPSIS or the DESCRIPTION sections of a man page? i ask since i'm seeing some definite inconsistency. in addition to the patch i submitted earlier, here are some other examples. "man git-clone", the SYNOPSIS says nothing about options "--verbose" or "-v", even though "git clone" supports those options and they're mentioned further down that man page. on that same man page, there are a number of options that have two supported forms (eg., "-l" and "--local"), but the SYNOPSIS shows only the short form, while many other man pages show both (for another example of this, see "man git-clean", which shows only the short forms). also, regarding what seems to be a standard for some options, it seems that many commands support both options "--verbose" and "-v" to mean verbose operation (as long as "-v" isn't reserved for some other option for that command, which occasionally happens). in cases where "-v" is not being used, is there a reason to not just add it as an equivalent to "--verbose"? the same thing could be said with respect to "-n" (as long as it's available) always being the short form of "--dry-run". and so on, and so on. oh, and i'm still wondering why some commands feel the need to explain the function of "--", when that's the sort of thing that more properly belongs in "man gitcli". thoughts? rday -- ======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday ======================================================================== ``` ## Jonathan Nieder, 2017-11-21 17:54 Subject: Re: pedantry: is there a standard for what should be in the SYNOPSIS? Message-ID: <20171121175436.GA27041@aiede.mtv.corp.google.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20171121175436.GA27041%40aiede.mtv.corp.google.com In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > following up on an earlier question of mine, is there a standard for > what options should be listed in either the SYNOPSIS or the > DESCRIPTION sections of a man page? i ask since i'm seeing some > definite inconsistency. No standard. Seems worth starting a discussion on what you'd like the standard to be. Jonathan ``` ## Robert P. J. Day, 2017-11-21 21:16 Subject: Re: pedantry: is there a standard for what should be in the SYNOPSIS? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.2.21.1711211615510.25800%40localhost.localdomain In-Reply-To: <20171121175436.GA27041@aiede.mtv.corp.google.com> ``` On Tue, 21 Nov 2017, Jonathan Nieder wrote: > Hi, > > Robert P. J. Day wrote: > > > following up on an earlier question of mine, is there a standard > > for what options should be listed in either the SYNOPSIS or the > > DESCRIPTION sections of a man page? i ask since i'm seeing some > > definite inconsistency. > > No standard. Seems worth starting a discussion on what you'd like > the standard to be. so i'm in charge? awesome. you won't regret it. :-) rday -- ======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday ======================================================================== ```