docs/55653: chflags.1 - note that not all tools chflags aware.
Gary W. Swearingen
underway at comcast.net
Sun Aug 17 14:40:15 UTC 2003
The following reply was made to PR docs/55653; it has been noted by GNATS.
From: underway at comcast.net (Gary W. Swearingen)
To: Tony Maher <tonymaher at optushome.com.au>
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit at FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: docs/55653: chflags.1 - note that not all tools chflags aware.
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 07:36:37 -0700
Tony Maher <tonymaher at optushome.com.au> writes:
> Attached is patch which just notes this in the chflags.1 man page.
Good idea.
> +.Sh BUGS
The warning note would be better placed in a custom WARNING (or NOTES)
section, or in a standard COMPATIBILITY section or even in the
DESCRIPTION. It's not about a chflags(1) bug. The fact that other
manpages abuse their BUGS section is no reason for this one to do it.
> +Only a limited number of tools know about about chflags.
-- Only a limited number of tools know about chflags.
-- Only a limited number of tools know about file flags.
-- Only a limited number of programs know about file flags.
-- A limited number of programs know about file flags.
-- Some programs do not know about file flags.
-- Some programs do not handle file flags.
-- Some programs which should handle file flags do not.
> +Some of the tools which are
It's debatable whether any of these tools/utilities/programs should be
listed in the manpage, mainly because it adds a continual source of
manpage bugs as file flags and their support changes from time to
time. Also, the info would, to be consistent, need to be added to
chflags(2) and other manpages that deal with file flags.
I tend to like helpful manpages, but in this case I think it's better
to limit that help to the generic warning note and put these lists of
programs in a Handbook "File Flags" section, if anywhere.
Also: The tar(1) and pax(1) manpages should say in their BUGS sections
that they don't support file flags, if that's the case.
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