Subject: ftp(1) man page
To: None <netbsd-docs@netbsd.org>
From: David H. Gutteridge <dhgutteridge@hotmail.com>
List: netbsd-docs
Date: 01/20/2004 16:06:36
Hello,
A problem with the ftp(1) man page across the various Un*x systems I've used
(NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Linux, HP-UX) is that the discussion of the
macdef command is missing important information. Specifically, although the
man page notes that "there is a limit of 16 macros and 4096 total characters
in all defined macros", it doesn't mention that macdef names are allotted a
maximum of eight characters. (Another way of putting it would be that only
the first eight characters provide unique identification.)
It also doesn't note that macdefs have to be associated with a preceding
machine definition (except for "init" I infer), and are not generically
applicable to any machine definition (or indeed any session not associated
with a machine definition). One might possibly infer the latter point
(which I find rather counterintuitive) from reading the .netrc-specific
section on machine definitions, but it's very subtle. (I literally wasted
an hour trying to figure out why a colleague's .netrc file wouldn't work on
Solaris 7 before I resorted to looking at the NetBSD implementation for
hints.)
I assume there's no central clearing-house for this sort of information
anymore, rather, each of these flavours of Un*x used the same BSD 4.x man
page and continue to do so without having updated it in a long time. (Given
all the flavours I listed above effectively provide the same man page...)
My question to the NetBSD developers is: do you agree the documentation
should be updated to include these caveats? (I don't see why not, but maybe
there's something I'm missing.) If so, I will provide a suggested patch for
the man page.
Regards,
David Gutteridge
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