Shell & Utilities -->
2. Shell Command Language -->
2.15 Special Built-In Utilities -->
set
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#set
On Wed, Nov 27, 2024 at 10:09:14PM +0000, Andrew via austin-group-l at The Open
Group wrote:
> The other day, I wanted to visit the latest POSIX specification of the `set`
> command, in order to confirm which safety flags are now supported. However,
> Google SEO continues to target old, outdated POSIX releases.
>
> I read the red banner about the fact that newer documentation is available.
> But the hyperlink lands on a generic page, not the latest page for that
> specific command.
>
> The URL structure is unpredictable; URL hacking is unable to navigate from
> either old set to new set, or new make to new set.
>
> So I use the generic landing site. Which is not easy to integrate, because it
> uses 90's style frames.
>
> There's no single page option that includes everything, like the GNU docs.
> There's no ePUB or PDF download option.
>
> So I use the search form. I enter "set".
>
> The results are not prioritized by relevance like a modern fuzzyfind or
> elastic style text search.
>
> I skim the page looking for records that begin with "set". No matches.
>
> No pagination. Evidently the results are truncated to only the first 100
> results. Which, again, are not ordered by relevance.
>
> Finally, a notice appears complaining that the query is too short.
>
> I give up on proof and rely on my memory of some ShellCheck open issues to
> explain to a coworker some context about how Snyk will eventually crash into
> pipefail in JSON mode, perhaps even in relatively common shell
> implementations such as Alpine ash. But I would have liked to provide him
> with a URL to the official POSIX spec.
>
> In summary, I think we have several opportunities to improve documentation
> navigation, downloads, and search.
--
Andreas (Kusalananda) Kähäri
Uppsala, Sweden
.
