Re: FW: [gnu.org #371319] missing in documentation?

[Jim Meyering]

Jim Meyering <address@hidden> wrote:

> "Meller, Thomas" <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Hello Jim,
>
> [please use the mailing list (Cc'd) in the future]
>
>> I think this whish ist best sent to you.
>> IMHO this could help a lot of system admins do their jobs better.
>>
>> Meanwhile, I found that the OS release I got does not support this
>> functionality. Mentioning the change-list or the implementation date
>> somewhere would be helpful, too.
>
> Run this command to see many examples:
>
>     info coreutils 'date invocation' examples
>
> Both "man date" and "date --help" already suggest that you run this
> (same as above, but without "examples"):
>
>     info coreutils 'date invocation'
>
> And when you do that, you see an 8-item menu where the last one
> is "* Examples of date::".   Type "m" (for menu) and then "E",
> (the first letter in the item you want), and TAB, and ENTER.
>
> So maybe all you really need is a more up to date man page?
>
> There is so much high-quality documentation that is available most
> conveniently in Texinfo/info format, that it really is worth spending
> a few minutes to become familiar with the basics of using "info"
> (Run "info info").

My main objection to copying the examples from texinfo into the man
page is the maintenance hassle.  If someone will write a little script
to automate translation of the output of this

    info coreutils 'date invocation' examples

into troff suitable for inclusion via man/date.x, that would
make a nice addition to people who don't know/like to use info.