# verifying syntax for optional and replaceable content in man pages

3 messages from 2018-05-30 to 2018-05-30. Participants: Robert P. J. Day, Stefan Beller.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/48601

## Robert P. J. Day, 2018-05-30 11:39

Subject: verifying syntax for optional and replaceable content in man pages
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1805300733440.10096@localhost.localdomain>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.2.21.1805300733440.10096%40localhost.localdomain

```

  willing to submit some patches to standardize the syntax of man
pages in terms of rendering "optional" and/or "replaceable" content,
and it seems like "man git-config" would be a good place to start:

SYNOPSIS
       git config [<file-option>] [type] [--show-origin] [-z|--null] name [value [value_regex]]
       git config [<file-option>] [type] --add name value
       git config [<file-option>] [type] --replace-all name value [value_regex]
       ...snip ...

  can i assume the proper (uniform) syntax for the above would be
(shortening lines):

  ... [<type>] [--show-origin] [-z|--null] <name> [<value> [<value_regex>]]
  ... [<type>] --add <name> <value>
  ... [<type>] --replace-all <name> <value> [<value_regex>]

and so on. is that the consensus? i wouldn't try to do it all at once,
maybe just a page at a time to not be too disruptive.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                  http://crashcourse.ca/dokuwiki

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

```

## Stefan Beller, 2018-05-30 17:54

Subject: Re: verifying syntax for optional and replaceable content in man pages
Message-ID: <CAGZ79kbdbV8r6Vr06ECOy9XXnBO_r=F-XcQU3WCCtOuCr0cfiQ@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAGZ79kbdbV8r6Vr06ECOy9XXnBO_r%3DF-XcQU3WCCtOuCr0cfiQ%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1805300733440.10096@localhost.localdomain>

```
On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 4:39 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> wrote:
>
>   willing to submit some patches to standardize the syntax of man
> pages in terms of rendering "optional" and/or "replaceable" content,
> and it seems like "man git-config" would be a good place to start:
>
> SYNOPSIS
>        git config [<file-option>] [type] [--show-origin] [-z|--null] name [value [value_regex]]
>        git config [<file-option>] [type] --add name value
>        git config [<file-option>] [type] --replace-all name value [value_regex]
>        ...snip ...
>
>   can i assume the proper (uniform) syntax for the above would be
> (shortening lines):
>
>   ... [<type>] [--show-origin] [-z|--null] <name> [<value> [<value_regex>]]

So the difference are the angle brackets around 'name', otherwise no change?

>   ... [<type>] --add <name> <value>

all the same but angle brackets around name and value,

>   ... [<type>] --replace-all <name> <value> [<value_regex>]

same.

> and so on. is that the consensus? i wouldn't try to do it all at once,
> maybe just a page at a time to not be too disruptive.

I would think there is consensus for unifying the syntax across all man pages
and put variable texts (name, path, key, value, etc) into angle brackets.

I used git-blame to find all the changes throughout history touching
the first line
of the synopsis (or rather: I used gitk, right click "show origin of line"),
and there were no edit wars whether to use angle brackets or not; it looks like
nobody cared or paid attention since the first revision of that line, which is

    git-config' [--global] [type] name [value [value_regex]]

from e0d10e1c63b ([PATCH] Rename git-repo-config to git-config., 2007-01-28)

Thanks for taking care of these!
Stefan

```

## Robert P. J. Day, 2018-05-30 18:08

Subject: Re: verifying syntax for optional and replaceable content in man pages
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1805301405200.9810@localhost.localdomain>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.2.21.1805301405200.9810%40localhost.localdomain
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kbdbV8r6Vr06ECOy9XXnBO_r=F-XcQU3WCCtOuCr0cfiQ@mail.gmail.com>

```
On Wed, 30 May 2018, Stefan Beller wrote:

> On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 4:39 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> wrote:
> >
> >   willing to submit some patches to standardize the syntax of man
> > pages in terms of rendering "optional" and/or "replaceable"
> > content, and it seems like "man git-config" would be a good place
> > to start:
> >
> > SYNOPSIS
> >        git config [<file-option>] [type] [--show-origin] [-z|--null] name [value [value_regex]]
> >        git config [<file-option>] [type] --add name value
> >        git config [<file-option>] [type] --replace-all name value [value_regex]
> >        ...snip ...
> >
> >   can i assume the proper (uniform) syntax for the above would be
> > (shortening lines):
> >
> >   ... [<type>] [--show-origin] [-z|--null] <name> [<value> [<value_regex>]]
>
> So the difference are the angle brackets around 'name', otherwise no
> change?

  more precisely, angle brackets would represent any "replaceable"
content, regardless of where it occurs.
>
> >   ... [<type>] --add <name> <value>
>
> all the same but angle brackets around name and value,

  same rationale as above, [<...>] would represent both optional *and*
replaceable content. and so on, and so on.

  the only other obvious inconsistency i've seen is, when referring to
an environment variable, i've seen both of:

  `VARIABLE`
  `$VARIABLE`

my personal preference is the one without the $ if just referring to
the variable, without trying to dereference it. but that's just me.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                  http://crashcourse.ca/dokuwiki

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

```