Re: Manpage interpreter

From: Giorgos Keramidas (keramida_at_ceid.upatras.gr)
Date: 12/24/04

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    Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 21:47:27 +0200
To: Nikolas Britton <freebsd@nbritton.org>

    On 2004-12-24 13:37, Nikolas Britton <freebsd@nbritton.org> wrote:
    >Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
    >>>It's even been known to happen that man pages can get revised (though
    >>>I think my experience with this was with OpenBSD).
    >>

    >> This happens with FreeBSD all the time too. When something is
    >> confusing, and the freebsd-doc team learns about it, we do try to
    >> reword the confusing parts, even rewrite entire sections of the
    >> manpages.
    >>
    >> The important bit here is that we have to be told what *is* confusing :)
    >
    > 1. The man page for nice is misleading, it says to use "nice -n num#
    > command" but we all know that won't work "nice: Badly formed number." it
    > should say "nice -/+num# command"

    What version of FreeBSD are you using? The manpage matches the behavior
    of the utility here, but this is FreeBSD 6.0-CURRENT.

      % $ nice -n 12 ls -l /dev/null
      % crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 2, 2 Dec 24 21:40 /dev/null
      %
      % $ nice -n +12 ls -l /dev/null
      % crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 2, 2 Dec 24 21:40 /dev/null
      %
      % $ nice -n -12 ls -l /dev/null
      % nice: setpriority: Permission denied
      % crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 2, 2 Dec 24 21:40 /dev/null

    The manpage also says:

      % COMPATIBILITY
      % The traditional -increment option has been deprecated but is
      % still supported.

    > 2. Secion 7.2.3 (Utilizing Multiple Sound Sources) implies that
    > hw.snd.maxautovchans is only usefull for kernel loadable sound modules,
    > this is not true:
    >
    > "To set the number of virtual channels, there are two sysctl knobs
    > which, if you are the root user, can be set like this:
    >
    > # sysctl hw.snd.pcm0.vchans=4
    > # sysctl hw.snd.maxautovchans=4
    >
    > The above example allocates four virtual channels, which is a practical
    > number for everyday use. hw.snd.pcm0.vchans is the number of virtual
    > channels pcm0 has, and is configurable once a device has been attached.
    > hw.snd.maxautovchans is the number of virtual channels a new audio
    > device is given when it is attached using kldload(8). Since the pcm
    > module can be loaded independently of the hardware drivers,
    > hw.snd.maxautovchans can store how many virtual channels any devices
    > which are attached later will be given."

    I see. Do you think it's ok if I mention attaching at boot time too,
    e.g. like this?

          The above example allocates four virtual channels, which is a
          practical number for everyday use. hw.snd.pcm0.vchans is the number
          of virtual channels pcm0 has, and is configurable once a device has
          been attached. hw.snd.maxautovchans is the number of virtual
      - channels a new audio device is given when it is attached using
      - kldload(8).
      + channels a new audio device is given when it is attached at boot
      + time or when loaded as a module with kldload(8).

    Does this seem better? :-)

    - Giorgos

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