Hello Pádraig,
On Fri, Aug 2, 2013, at 10:11, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 08/01/2013 08:56 PM, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > A semicolon is a sentence separator too; it just avoids the need for
> > a capital starter letter and a finishing period.
>
> Well generally there should be some tenuous relationship
> between the ; delimited "sentences"
True. But as the phrases all describe aspects of the same option,
there is in my opinion always some relationship between them,
which could be expressed with "where" or "however" or something.
Attached patch does some more semicolon substitutions, of periods
I overlooked the first time. It also does more indentation adjustments,
and adds some parentheses around equivalent short options for clarity.
It also removes the phrase "and do not dereference symbolic links" from
the 'ls -d' option, because 1) to be correct it would have to add "unless
-H or -L etcera", but such precision is something for the manual; 2) the
phrase is not given for -F nor -l either, for which it is also valid.
Regards,
Benno
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - The way an email service should be
From 2ebb239420ac78736415e8b2414ed57136b0ca7e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benno Schulenberg <bensb...@justemail.net>
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2013 10:38:12 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] doc: more semicolons instead of periods in option descriptions
Also slightly rephrase some descriptions for extra clarity, and
add more consistent indentation.
* src/df.c (usage): Semicolon, no final period.
* src/du.c (usage): Likewise, plus indentation and clarifying words.
* src/ls.c (usage): Semicolon, rephrasings, added parentheses for
clarity, indentation.
* src/rm.c (usage): Semicolons.
---
src/df.c | 6 +++---
src/du.c | 12 ++++++------
src/ls.c | 38 ++++++++++++++++++--------------------
src/rm.c | 4 ++--
4 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 31 deletions(-)
diff --git a/src/df.c b/src/df.c
index e018064..c2c390e 100644
--- a/src/df.c
+++ b/src/df.c
@@ -1233,9 +1233,9 @@ or all file systems by default.\n\
fputs (_("\
-a, --all include dummy file systems\n\
- -B, --block-size=SIZE scale sizes by SIZE before printing them. E.g.,\n\
- '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes.\n\
- See SIZE format below.\n\
+ -B, --block-size=SIZE scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; e.g.,\n\
+ '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes;\n\
+ see SIZE format below\n\
--total produce a grand total\n\
-h, --human-readable print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)\
\n\
diff --git a/src/du.c b/src/du.c
index b8aba0b..a265b10 100644
--- a/src/du.c
+++ b/src/du.c
@@ -298,9 +298,9 @@ Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.\n\
fragmentation, indirect blocks, and the like\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- -B, --block-size=SIZE scale sizes by SIZE before printing them. E.g.,\n\
- '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes.\n\
- See SIZE format below.\n\
+ -B, --block-size=SIZE scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; e.g.,\n\
+ '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes;\n\
+ see SIZE format below\n\
-b, --bytes equivalent to '--apparent-size --block-size=1'\n\
-c, --total produce a grand total\n\
-D, --dereference-args dereference only symlinks that are listed on the\n\
@@ -338,9 +338,9 @@ Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.\n\
directory, or any of its subdirectories\n\
--time=WORD show time as WORD instead of modification time:\n\
atime, access, use, ctime or status\n\
- --time-style=STYLE show times using style STYLE:\n\
- full-iso, long-iso, iso, +FORMAT\n\
- FORMAT is interpreted like 'date'\n\
+ --time-style=STYLE show times using STYLE, which can be:\n\
+ full-iso, long-iso, iso, or +FORMAT;\n\
+ FORMAT is interpreted like in 'date'\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-X, --exclude-from=FILE exclude files that match any pattern in FILE\n\
diff --git a/src/ls.c b/src/ls.c
index f3c3a1b..8bb3df9 100644
--- a/src/ls.c
+++ b/src/ls.c
@@ -4769,10 +4769,9 @@ Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-C list entries by columns\n\
- --color[=WHEN] colorize the output. WHEN defaults to 'always'\n\
- or can be 'never' or 'auto'; more info below\n\
- -d, --directory list directory entries instead of contents,\n\
- and do not dereference symbolic links\n\
+ --color[=WHEN] colorize the output; WHEN can be 'never', 'auto',\n\
+ or 'always' (the default); more info below\n\
+ -d, --directory list just names of directories, not their contents\n\
-D, --dired generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
@@ -4835,9 +4834,9 @@ Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.\n\
append / indicator to directories\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- -q, --hide-control-chars print ? instead of non-graphic characters\n\
- --show-control-chars show non graphic characters as-is (default\n\
- unless program is 'ls' and output is a terminal)\n\
+ -q, --hide-control-chars print ? instead of nongraphic characters\n\
+ --show-control-chars show nongraphic characters as-is (the default,\n\
+ unless program is 'ls' and output is a terminal)\n\
-Q, --quote-name enclose entry names in double quotes\n\
--quoting-style=WORD use quoting style WORD for entry names:\n\
literal, locale, shell, shell-always, c, escape\
@@ -4850,22 +4849,21 @@ Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-S sort by file size\n\
- --sort=WORD sort by WORD instead of name: none -U,\n\
- extension -X, size -S, time -t, version -v\n\
- --time=WORD with -l, show time as WORD instead of modification\
-\n\
- time: atime -u, access -u, use -u, ctime -c,\n\
- or status -c; use specified time as sort key\n\
- if --sort=time\n\
+ --sort=WORD sort by WORD instead of name: none (-U), size (-S),\n\
+ time (-t), version (-v), extension (-X)\n\
+ --time=WORD with -l, show time as WORD instead of default\n\
+ modification time: atime or access or use (-u)\n\
+ ctime or status (-c); also use specified time\n\
+ as sort key if --sort=time\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
--time-style=STYLE with -l, show times using style STYLE:\n\
- full-iso, long-iso, iso, locale, +FORMAT;\n\
- FORMAT is interpreted like 'date'; if FORMAT is\n\
- FORMAT1<newline>FORMAT2, then FORMAT1 applies to\n\
- non-recent files and FORMAT2 to recent files;\n\
- if STYLE is prefixed with 'posix-', STYLE\n\
- takes effect only outside the POSIX locale\n\
+ full-iso, long-iso, iso, locale, or +FORMAT;\n\
+ FORMAT is interpreted like in 'date'; if FORMAT\n\
+ is FORMAT1<newline>FORMAT2, then FORMAT1 applies\n\
+ to non-recent files and FORMAT2 to recent files;\n\
+ if STYLE is prefixed with 'posix-', STYLE\n\
+ takes effect only outside the POSIX locale\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-t sort by modification time, newest first\n\
diff --git a/src/rm.c b/src/rm.c
index b9b84e1..4b87c12 100644
--- a/src/rm.c
+++ b/src/rm.c
@@ -141,10 +141,10 @@ Remove (unlink) the FILE(s).\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
-I prompt once before removing more than three files, or\n\
- when removing recursively. Less intrusive than -i,\n\
+ when removing recursively; less intrusive than -i,\n\
while still giving protection against most mistakes\n\
--interactive[=WHEN] prompt according to WHEN: never, once (-I), or\n\
- always (-i). Without WHEN, prompt always\n\
+ always (-i); without WHEN, prompt always\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
--one-file-system when removing a hierarchy recursively, skip any\n\
--
1.7.0.4
