Re: [Groff] Parsing specific section of man page

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi,

Ralph Corderoy wrote on Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 05:16:01PM +0000:
> Clarke Echols wrote:

>> I agree with Ingo.  Unix man pages are supposed to have a well-defined
>> sequence and format.

> (Many, the majority?, don't comply on common Linux systems,
> unfortunately.)

Right, which is exactly why parsing manuals is so difficult,
and not really a healthy task for beginners.

> Neither of you are allowing that Siteshwar may be doing this for his own
> personal enjoyment, for learning more, for a project to work on, or
> something that he'd like to use.

Oh, of course i am.

However, in case he is planning to do it for enjoyment or learning -
there are so many useful things that need to be done.  About two years
ago, i sent some yp(8) patches to Mats O. Jansson, asking for a review,
and was quite suprised about his response, which roughly went like this:
"Right, i wrote that code in my youth, in a playful way, because i
wanted to learn about yp(8).  I have moved on to other projects a
decade ago.  Feel free to send patches, yes, if i see anything
dangerous, i'll tell you, but if you don't hear anything, go ahead
and commit, i don't claim ownership of that code any longer."
The point is, the code has been so stable during that decade that it
didn't even need a maintainer; with a bit of polishing now and then
by whoever was around, it remained in production quality.

There is no need to choose stupid projects for learning;
actually, you not only *produce* less, you also *learn* less
in a project that is bound for failure right from the start.

In case he needs it for a project or wants to use it - it would be
cruel not to tell him that the project is probably going to fail.

I mean, he is asking for advice, and obviously knows rather little
about roff(1) and man(7).

  "How do i best shoot my knee?
   Should i hold the gun this way or that?"

We *should* tell him that he should better not aim at his knee
at all, or at least pay attention that no other people
are standing behind his back, right?

> bash(1)

Maybe, but i don't really know; i stopped using that one about
a decade ago.

Yours,
  Ingo