Subject: Re: What information belongs into man pages?
To: None <gdt@ir.bbn.com>
From: Havard Eidnes <he@NetBSD.org>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 10/20/2006 17:10:02
> In this case, the existing man page has a CAVEAT which could be
> improved, but I'd be terser
>
> CAVEATS
>      The argument to isspace() must be EOF or a valid value for an
>      unsigned char; otherwise, the result is undefined.  Thus, it is
>      incorrect to pass a (signed) char as the argument.

I like this one.  I think that if something should be added, it
should be a short reference to the standard, or just prefix this
with "According to the standard", so that people who read this
and are not fluent from before clearly understand that this isn't
a NetBSD caveat but is a general standardized caveat for these
functions.  Though perhaps that is implied by the "STANDARDS"
section in the man page and the reference to ANSI C there?  Or is
that too much of an implied reference?

My personal impression of Roland's version was that while it was
both correct and pedagogical, it was perhaps too long and too
much of a tutorial for reference documentation such as our man
pages?

Best regards,

- H=E5vard