On 27/10/2020 00:03, Roland Illig wrote:
> Hi,
  > Some of the programs add an empty line before the --help and --version lines, which
> looks ok.  Several others do not add a line, which looks wrong.  This
> should be consistent among all coreutils.

I agree we should make things as consistent as possible.
Though most utils do _not_ have a blank line before --help,--version.
The following utils do have a blank line:

$ ./build-aux/gen-lists-of-programs.sh --list-progs | while read p; do
   src/$p --help | grep -B1 -- --help | grep -q '^$' && echo $p; done | fmt

arch coreutils hostname hostid uptime users [ b2sum base64 base32 chcon
chgrp chown cksum dd expr factor false link logname md5sum nohup printf
realpath runcon sha1sum sha224sum sha256sum sha384sum sha512sum sleep
true tsort unlink whoami yes

Of those above, those that also have other options are:

base64 chcon chgrp chown md5sum realpath runcon

Now chcon, chgrp, chown, md5sum discuss the options before --help,--version
as a group and so a blank line is best there.
Therefore to improve consistency we should remove the blank line from:
base64, realpath, and runcon, which is done in the attached.

cheers,
Pádraig