GNU bug report logs - #46808
Man page of "tail"

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Message #10 received at 46808-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Reuti <reuti <at> staff.uni-marburg.de>
Cc: 46808-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org, bug-help2man <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#46808: Man page of "tail"
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2022 14:36:34 -0800

On 2/26/21 23:32, Reuti wrote:

> I noticed some formatting issues in the man page of `tail`, and I wonder whether they are intentional as they occur at some places. They happen up to version 8.32:
> 
> line: "-c, --bytes=[+]NUM" the "[" is in italic: \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-bytes\fR=\fI\,[\/\fR+]NUM
> line: "-f, --follow[={name|descriptor}]" the "[=" is in bold: \fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-follow[=\fR{name|descriptor}]
> line: "-n, --lines=[+]NUM" the "[" is "[" is in italic: \fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-lines\fR=\fI\,[\/\fR+]NUM
> 
> I'm not a `groff` expert, but the sequence "\,some-text\/" appears a couple of times. What effect does it have for the formatting as the "," and "/" are not output?

Thanks for the bug report. Those lines are automatically generated by 
help2man, so I'm cc'ing this to bug-help2man <at> gnu.org and will close the 
coreutils bug report.

The problem is that "tail --help" outputs this:

  -c, --bytes=[+]NUM       output the last NUM bytes; or use -c +NUM to
                             output starting with byte NUM of each file
  -f, --follow[={name|descriptor}]
                           output appended data as the file grows;
                             an absent option argument means 'descriptor'
  -F                       same as --follow=name --retry
  -n, --lines=[+]NUM       output the last NUM lines, instead of the 
last 10;
                             or use -n +NUM to output starting with 
line NUM


and help2man transforms that into:

.TP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-bytes\fR=\fI\,[\/\fR+]NUM
output the last NUM bytes; or use \fB\-c\fR +NUM to
output starting with byte NUM of each file
.TP
\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-follow[=\fR{name|descriptor}]
output appended data as the file grows;
.IP
an absent option argument means 'descriptor'
.TP
\fB\-F\fR
same as \fB\-\-follow\fR=\fI\,name\/\fR \fB\-\-retry\fR
.TP
\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-lines\fR=\fI\,[\/\fR+]NUM
output the last NUM lines, instead of the last 10;
or use \fB\-n\fR +NUM to output starting with line NUM

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