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

[Meller, Thomas]

Hello Jim,

thanks a lot for your help.
Meanwhile I found my way through.

My experience with the texinfo manuals is most of them repeat the
content of the corresponding manpages.
Well - experiences are subject to aging. :-| 
Times get better - sometimes. :)
Simply adding the hint "info coreutils 'date invocation' " near the
explanation of the '-d' switch would help a lot.
I don't think it is necessary to export the texinfo manual. If you find
something worth learning how to fiddle with 'info' and don't use it -
that's up to you.

New features are always welcome. Finding them, too.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Meyering [mailto:address@hidden 
> Sent: Mittwoch, 20. August 2008 21:20
> To: Meller, Thomas
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: FW: [gnu.org #371319] missing in documentation?
> 
> 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.
>