On 17 September 2011 14:15, Jim Meyering <j...@meyering.net> wrote: > Reuben Thomas wrote: >> The documentation says: >> >> The default mode is to print a line with checksum, a character >> indicating type (`*' for binary, ` >> ' for text), and name for each FILE. >> >> There are two problems here. First, a small one: the second character >> is a space character, which needs to be non-breaking, and preferably >> explained, as in "` ' (a space)". If you agree, I'll make a patch for >> the info and man page. > > Sure, thanks. Though the man page renders fine for me, > with an 80-column-wide terminal: > > input should be a former output of this program. The default mode is > to print a line with checksum, a character indicating type (`*' for > binary, ` ' for text), and name for each FILE. > > Maybe it depends on terminal width?
This is what I'm saying: with the wrong terminal width, the closing quote is on the line after the opening line, and this is possible because the contents of the quotes is a normal space. A non-breaking space is needed. And preferably the explanation I suggested, since ` ' is apt to be mistaken for `'. > However, "... indicating type" refers to "type of checksum line", > or "type to be used for", not the type of the file. It controls how > md5sum opens the file, but only on systems for which O_BINARY makes > a difference (which means it's not worth much discussion for > unix/linux/gnu-centric documentation). So how about something like s/indicating type/indicating the mode in which the file should be opened (this only matters for systems which treat text and binary files differently)/ ? -- http://rrt.sc3d.org
