On 07/21/13 10:07, patrick keshishian wrote:
On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 09:15:00AM +0200, Alexander Hall wrote:
On 07/21/13 08:11, patrick keshishian wrote:
However, the sentence still reads awkwardly. Are you trying to
say the requirement is:
if (an_exit_status == 0 &&
(output_string == "" || output_string == "yes"))
Yup.
If so, maybe a better wording would be:
Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero exit status,
and the first line of the program's output SHOULD be either
empty or the string "yes."
Suggesting the following:
Successful confirmation is signaled by a zero exit status,
and the first line of the program's output being either
empty or the string "yes".
Must really the full stop should be within the quotes, even though it's
not part of the quote? If so, and we may not ignore this for the
percieved accuracy of the man pages, I'd suggest we rephrase it so that
it is not the last word.
I believe so, see: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/03/
But, my suggestion mainly was to introduce the word "should"
in order to make the statement less passive, when stating what
is expected of the program's first output line.
Well I'm not all for rfc2119 imperatives in the man pages (and they are
rare), but I agree the sentence above is not perfectly clear. I'll drop
the comma and reorder a bit:
Confirmation is considered affirmative if the exit status
is zero and the first line of the program's output is the
string "yes", or empty.
I am however hoping to have jmc@ comment on this, as man pages are not
my bikeshed to paint. :-)
/Alexander
