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#manpage — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #manpage, aggregated by home.social.

  1. *wants to see the help page for "reboot"
    *types "reboot -h" 💁
    *pc immediately reboots 😑
    *tries again with "man reboot" 🤪

    #Linux #Shell #manpage #fail

  2. Is there any reason, why curl lists an example in their --header section as follows:

    curl -H "User-Agent: yes-please/2000" https://example.com

    Is there someone a #Jazz fan, or is it some other kind of a pun? 🤔

    #foss #OpenSource #curl #manpage #unix

  3. @romulojales Huh, interesting! Looks like description of the "-Q" flag in the Emacs manpage and in the output of "emacs --help" — differs :drgn_flat_sob: (see the screnshot), at least for Emacs 30.2

    Looks like it's time to make "M-x report-emacs-bug" :drgn_aww:

    #Emacs #man #manpage

  4. I can't believe it took me until today to realise:

    If you read a plaintext email in #gnus and that email contains a string that looks like a reference to a unix #manpage -- e.g. "find(1)" -- gnus renders it as a hyperlink to the actual manpage on your disk.

  5. I've actually authored Unix man pages.

    The best resources to get started with this 1970s dark arts from Bell Labs are these:

    O'Reilly: UNIX° TEXT PROCESSING Chapter 4 nroff and troff:

    oreilly.com/library/view/unixd

    At least Emacs has an nroff mode, which will make authoring man pages significantly easier.

    Nroff Mode (GNU Emacs Manual):

    gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/

    More about nroff:

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nroff

    Hope this helps.

    #Unix #Linux #ManPage #Emacs

  6. Today this bugged me enough to investigate it again, and it's actually a confirmed bug in the `man` command! 😂

    gitlab.com/man-db/man-db/-/iss

    As far as I understand it, English man pages are special since they're not in a subdirectory:

    /usr/share/man/man1/tac.1.gz
    —vs—
    /usr/share/man/de/man1/tac.1.gz

    And somehow man's language handling doesn't consider them at all when also finding a page in the $LANGUAGE list.

    Workaround: Unset $LANGUAGE when invoking `man`. 💁‍♂️

    #Linux #CLI #man #manpage #language

  7. (Possibly relevant to @b0rk 's interests)

    So I hit a flag in diff, --unchanged-group-format. It does not show up in the manpage. It does not show up in --help. You can search both those channels for that string and you will not find it.

    You know where it shows up first? If you Google it, you'll get an example in gnu.org/software/diffutils/man.

    So why doesn't it show up in the manpage? Well, it does! If you read the entire manpage. With your eyes.

      -D, --ifdef=NAME                output merged file with '#ifdef NAME' diffs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
    --GTYPE-group-format=GFMT format GTYPE input groups with GFMT
    --line-format=LFMT format all input lines with LFMT
    --LTYPE-line-format=LFMT format LTYPE input lines with LFMT
    These format options provide fine-grained control over the output
    of diff, generalizing -D/--ifdef.
    LTYPE is 'old', 'new', or 'unchanged'. GTYPE is LTYPE or 'changed'.

    "What do you mean it isn't documented? Of course it's documented. You did read every line and do some template-substitution in your brain, didn't you?"

    This isn't advocating for not reading the manpage. If you really want to understand how the tool works, you read the whole manpage. And probably the source code. 😉

    ... but I don't want to understand how the tool works. I want to diff two files and not have the lines that are the same get emitted.

    And I think a lot of application- and solution-generating computer people, most of the time, in most of their careers, are operating on that level of depth. Problems come in too fast and with too much variety. You absolutely go deep on some things. There is no time to go deep on everything.

    So how do we address this (other than throw up our hands and say "Relying on Google's fuzzy search of the whole Internet and vibe-coding LLMs is the future actually")? I don't have magic bullets, but a "fuzzy search" mode in something like less that could take an input like --unchanged-group-format and twig that it if there's no exact match, it might be related to --GTYPE-group-format would be nice.

    Maybe I should mock that up in emacs. Actually, I bet someone already put it in emacs. ;)

    #emacs #manpage #less

  8. @lattera every line of code and new algo or what have you can have provenance and confidence rating as well as tell you exactly what is happening - all the metadata, they have the resources to own and they do interdiction and camp out for years #manpage #tldp #documentation #metadata #katie sstam #ft meade

  9. @lattera every line of code and new algo or what have you can have provenance and confidence rating as well as tell you exactly what is happening - all the metadata, they have the resources to own and they do interdiction and camp out for years #manpage #tldp #documentation #metadata #katie sstam #ft meade

  10. @lattera every line of code and new algo or what have you can have provenance and confidence rating as well as tell you exactly what is happening - all the metadata, they have the resources to own and they do interdiction and camp out for years #manpage #tldp #documentation #metadata #katie sstam #ft meade

  11. @lattera every line of code and new algo or what have you can have provenance and confidence rating as well as tell you exactly what is happening - all the metadata, they have the resources to own and they do interdiction and camp out for years #manpage #tldp #documentation #metadata #katie sstam #ft meade

  12. When I need docs I do

    `man command'

    When I pressed F1 in a gui program it did the following

    * Request a helper running in my DE to parse a html page
    * Ask the helper to open my default html parser
    * __Without asking me__ the helper opened a __massive browser__ ravaging ram just to show me what I could find with
    `man command`
    * I wonder why instead the Ui program did not do the following

    * request a helper open a (ba)sh
    * parse >man command to the helper
    * have the helper display the manpage in the sh

    The results would be
    * Much less resources used
    * No assumption on my current internet connection would be made
    * That method has worked for 60 years

    <IRC>
    /m shakes head and looks at the massive browser showing the equivalence of a manpage
    </IRC>

    @altbot

    🖋️ #bash #sh #zsh #ksh #csh #qBittorrent #torrent #manpage #man1 #F1 #F1Help #WomenWhoCode #640daysofcode #301daysofcode #730daysofcode #100DaysOfCode #1000DaysOfCode #Linux #POSIX #Programming #DEVCommunity #RetroComputing

    github.com/qbittorrent/qBittor

  13. When I need docs I do

    `man command'

    When I pressed F1 in a gui program it did the following

    * Request a helper running in my DE to parse a html page
    * Ask the helper to open my default html parser
    * __Without asking me__ the helper opened a __massive browser__ ravaging ram just to show me what I could find with
    `man command`
    * I wonder why instead the Ui program did not do the following

    * request a helper open a (ba)sh
    * parse >man command to the helper
    * have the helper display the manpage in the sh

    The results would be
    * Much less resources used
    * No assumption on my current internet connection would be made
    * That method has worked for 60 years

    <IRC>
    /m shakes head and looks at the massive browser showing the equivalence of a manpage
    </IRC>

    @altbot

    🖋️ #bash #sh #zsh #ksh #csh #qBittorrent #torrent #manpage #man1 #F1 #F1Help #WomenWhoCode #640daysofcode #301daysofcode #730daysofcode #100DaysOfCode #1000DaysOfCode #Linux #POSIX #Programming #DEVCommunity #RetroComputing

    github.com/qbittorrent/qBittor

  14. When I need docs I do

    `man command'

    When I pressed F1 in a gui program it did the following

    * Request a helper running in my DE to parse a html page
    * Ask the helper to open my default html parser
    * __Without asking me__ the helper opened a __massive browser__ ravaging ram just to show me what I could find with
    `man command`
    * I wonder why instead the Ui program did not do the following

    * request a helper open a (ba)sh
    * parse >man command to the helper
    * have the helper display the manpage in the sh

    The results would be
    * Much less resources used
    * No assumption on my current internet connection would be made
    * That method has worked for 60 years

    <IRC>
    /m shakes head and looks at the massive browser showing the equivalence of a manpage
    </IRC>

    @altbot

    🖋️ #bash #sh #zsh #ksh #csh #qBittorrent #torrent #manpage #man1 #F1 #F1Help #WomenWhoCode #640daysofcode #301daysofcode #730daysofcode #100DaysOfCode #1000DaysOfCode #Linux #POSIX #Programming #DEVCommunity #RetroComputing

    github.com/qbittorrent/qBittor

  15. When I need docs I do

    `man command'

    When I pressed F1 in a gui program it did the following

    * Request a helper running in my DE to parse a html page
    * Ask the helper to open my default html parser
    * __Without asking me__ the helper opened a __massive browser__ ravaging ram just to show me what I could find with
    `man command`
    * I wonder why instead the Ui program did not do the following

    * request a helper open a (ba)sh
    * parse >man command to the helper
    * have the helper display the manpage in the sh

    The results would be
    * Much less resources used
    * No assumption on my current internet connection would be made
    * That method has worked for 60 years

    <IRC>
    /m shakes head and looks at the massive browser showing the equivalence of a manpage
    </IRC>

    @altbot

    🖋️ #bash #sh #zsh #ksh #csh #qBittorrent #torrent #manpage #man1 #F1 #F1Help #WomenWhoCode #640daysofcode #301daysofcode #730daysofcode #100DaysOfCode #1000DaysOfCode #Linux #POSIX #Programming #DEVCommunity #RetroComputing

    github.com/qbittorrent/qBittor

  16. When I need docs I do

    `man command'

    When I pressed F1 in a gui program it did the following

    * Request a helper running in my DE to parse a html page
    * Ask the helper to open my default html parser
    * __Without asking me__ the helper opened a __massive browser__ ravaging ram just to show me what I could find with
    `man command`
    * I wonder why instead the Ui program did not do the following

    * request a helper open a (ba)sh
    * parse >man command to the helper
    * have the helper display the manpage in the sh

    The results would be
    * Much less resources used
    * No assumption on my current internet connection would be made
    * That method has worked for 60 years

    <IRC>
    /m shakes head and looks at the massive browser showing the equivalence of a manpage
    </IRC>

    @altbot

    🖋️ #bash #sh #zsh #ksh #csh #qBittorrent #torrent #manpage #man1 #F1 #F1Help #WomenWhoCode #640daysofcode #301daysofcode #730daysofcode #100DaysOfCode #1000DaysOfCode #Linux #POSIX #Programming #DEVCommunity #RetroComputing

    github.com/qbittorrent/qBittor

  17. Today, after reading the #udev #manpage and some other references I managed to write a udev rule to automatically unbind the USB interface of the keyboard, the one used to program it.

    It was an interesting challenge because the keyboard has multiple interfaces under the same #USB vendor and product IDs and I only wanted to touch that specific interface.

    There's something not quite right yet for my objective of manking my #8bdkbd utility able to run rootless though. Will keep experimenting later.

  18. Today in subtle differences in meaning:

    ~ $ pfetch |grep uptime
    ... uptime 3d 18h 32m
    ~ $ uptime
    ... up 1 day, 4:24

    The former is correct, and gets the uptime from `sysctl -n kern.boottime`. The latter is also correct. The says "The utility displays ... the length of time the system has been up". This machine spent 2 and a bit out of the last 3 and a bit days asleep, and when it's asleep it's not up.

    "What's " you ask? github.com/dylanaraps/pfetch

  19. Today in subtle differences in meaning:

    ~ $ pfetch |grep uptime
    ... uptime 3d 18h 32m
    ~ $ uptime
    ... up 1 day, 4:24

    The former is correct, and gets the uptime from `sysctl -n kern.boottime`. The latter is also correct. The #ManPage says "The #uptime utility displays ... the length of time the system has been up". This machine spent 2 and a bit out of the last 3 and a bit days asleep, and when it's asleep it's not up.

    "What's #pfetch" you ask? github.com/dylanaraps/pfetch

  20. Today in subtle differences in meaning:

    ~ $ pfetch |grep uptime
    ... uptime 3d 18h 32m
    ~ $ uptime
    ... up 1 day, 4:24

    The former is correct, and gets the uptime from `sysctl -n kern.boottime`. The latter is also correct. The #ManPage says "The #uptime utility displays ... the length of time the system has been up". This machine spent 2 and a bit out of the last 3 and a bit days asleep, and when it's asleep it's not up.

    "What's #pfetch" you ask? github.com/dylanaraps/pfetch

  21. Today in subtle differences in meaning:

    ~ $ pfetch |grep uptime
    ... uptime 3d 18h 32m
    ~ $ uptime
    ... up 1 day, 4:24

    The former is correct, and gets the uptime from `sysctl -n kern.boottime`. The latter is also correct. The #ManPage says "The #uptime utility displays ... the length of time the system has been up". This machine spent 2 and a bit out of the last 3 and a bit days asleep, and when it's asleep it's not up.

    "What's #pfetch" you ask? github.com/dylanaraps/pfetch

  22. Is there a cross-platform way to add a horizontal rule/page-separator to a man page. Must be supported by groff, nroff, troff, and BSD's roff.
    #roff #groff #nroff #troff #manpage #manpages