Michael Gorbovitski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > chmod --help > results in : > help for chmod > ...... > Each MODE is of the form `[ugoa]*([-+=]([rwxXst]*|[ugo]))+'. > > Report bugs to <[email protected]>. > > > The above regular expression is unparsable by most people requesting the help. > Reasoning: > chmod is a basic linux command. If the user is requesting help for it, he is > most likely a *nix > novice. Assuming that he is intimately familiar with regular expressions > seems counterintuitive, > given the prior assumption. > > Maybe we could add several examples, to either the help or the man page? > > And no, neither the man page
Thanks for the report, but... The man page is derived mechanically from --help output, possibly with additions from a corresponding man/*.x file. The --help output is deliberately kept brief. However, the output of "man 1 chmod" from coreutils-6.11 is 127 lines long. Maybe you're using an older version? > nor the info page is much better. The man page does refer to the info documentation, which includes in-depth discussion of "symbolic modes" (i.e., type "info coreutils 'file perm' sym"). _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
