GNU bug report logs - #11020
man page Tail : last -> most recent?

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Gijs Hillenius <gijs <at> hillenius.net>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: man page Tail : last -> most recent? 
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:23:07 +0100

Hello,

I just happen to notice an extra space in the man page of tail between
Print and the


"Print  the last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output"

that is in the man page of the tail application included in Debian
Linux.


But, more importantly:

I would write

Print the most recent 10 lines of each FILE to standard output ....



Kind greetings

Gijs Hillenius




-- 
Afternoon very favorable for romance.  Try a single person for a change.

Message #8 received at 11020 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Gijs Hillenius <gijs <at> hillenius.net>
Cc: 11020 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#11020: man page Tail : last -> most recent?
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:27:20 -0700

On 03/15/2012 06:23 AM, Gijs Hillenius wrote:
 
> I just happen to notice an extra space in the man page of tail between

Thanks, but that's due to nroff justification to make the line lengths all the same;
it's a property of how your man pages are formatting, not 'tail' per se,
which means the proper change would be somewhere in the man-page macros
not in coreutils proper.

> I would write
> 
> Print the most recent 10 lines of each FILE to standard output ....

Hmm, why is "most recent" better than "last"?  "Most recent" is a longer phrase,
and technically, the lines most recently added to a file are not
necessarily its last lines, so "most recent" is less
technically accurate.

Message #13 received at 11020-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Gijs Hillenius <gijs <at> hillenius.net>
Cc: 11020-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#11020: man page Tail : last -> most recent?
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 01:22:00 -0700

On 03/16/2012 12:14 AM, Gijs Hillenius wrote:
> I figured "most recent" would clearify that in a brief manner, but it
> does not either.

Yes, it's hard to write clear and brief usage messages
and sometimes there just isn't any good solution.
Anyway, I'm closing out this bug report for now.

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