Subject: Re: bug#47324: Missing information in documentation
From: Bernhard Voelker <[email-masked]>
To: Walter Harms <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2021 23:21:31 +0100
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

On 3/22/21 5:37 PM, Walter Harms via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
> hi list,
> in the documentation (man page) [...]

According to the GNU guidelines and to avoid double work, the man page of
the coreutils is essentially not much more than the output of --help
(and actually gets generated via that).
Instead, the real documentation is available via the Texinfo manual,
which is available in diverse formats.  In a usual installation, it
is reachable via:
  $ info '(coreutils) ls invocation'
Alternative formats include HTML, PDF etc., see:
  https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/

> [...] nice feature is mssing
> when a fs is mounted on a directory ls marks that with a dot
> behing the permission mask (see example)
> 
> drwxr-xr-x. 2 1003 users 4096 Mar 22 17:53 vendor
>          ^^
>          notice the dot here
> 
> I found nothing mentioned in the documentation.

It is documented in the section about the '-l' option:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/What-information-is-listed.html

  [...]
  Following the file mode bits is a single character that specifies whether an
  alternate access method such as an access control list applies to the file.
  When the character following the file mode bits is a space, there is no alternate
  access method. When it is a printing character, then there is such a method.

  GNU ls uses a ‘.’ character to indicate a file with a security context, but no
  other alternate access method.

  A file with any other combination of alternate access methods is marked with a ‘+’ character.

Assuming that this section is clear enough, I'm hereby marking this as done
in our bug tracker. Of course, the discussion can continue, and we could even
reopen the issue if needed.

Have a nice day,
Berny