Mail Archives: djgpp-workers/1998/07/22/10:09:19
Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>, djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com, wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET) wrote:
>
> > Yes I mean that. Is very difficult to read the man pages with all the
> > deletes floating around.
>
> I wouldn't say 'less page.1' is 'difficult'. Heck, even the venerable
> old 'list.com' by Vernon Buerg manages to display those texts correctly.
> Or even a simple 'more <page.1'!.
>
> No offence meant, but 'very difficult' would be something entirely
> different, IMHO.
Hmm... that's getting hot ]:-)).
Loading an info file with info or RHIDE is even *easier* then if you
think like that retract your self about the topic of distributing
info files in UNIX format ;-))))
Please understand my point: You say that info files must be in DOS
format to avoid complaints from newbies. Ok, I disagree but I think
is a good point. Now: I say man pages must be in plain text format (I
don't say the others must be supresed, just add .txt versions)
because you need extra tools to read it. The situation is worst.
> > Yes I know, but a not a new user. You said in this list (twice one to
> > Gili and one to me) that info files are shipped in DOS format because
> > some DOS editors fails to break the lines in '\n'. Here is worst,
> > I don't know about even one DOS editor that parses the delete
> > characters ;-).
>
> Well, who said you're meant to edit info files or postprocessed .man
> pages, at all?
Nobody, but you say the users have this idea.
> It's generally wrong to do so, in both cases.
I agree and that what I said when we discussed the same thing about
info files. According to you this argument wasn't valid and now you
are using it :-)
> The only
> reason that makes it necessary to explicitly handle this error for .info
> files is that the format is not just text, but also contains things like
> absolute file positions (in the index table). Those have to be fixed after
> a file has been tampered with. With man pages, that can't really
> happen, so there's nothing to fix.
>
> And if you really want to edit those files,
I never said I want to do it.
> there's always the little tool
> that knows how to remove backspace-character sequences from a text file.
Last night I wrote one in a few minutes just to test if all works
like I think.
> I
> just don't remember the name off the top of my head, but it came with cawf
> (a poor-man's groff for man pages).
>
> And of course, as the author of one (somewhat popular) DOS editor, it's
> finally *your* task to make your editor handle backspace-enhanced ASCII
> files properly, if you want it done :-)
I wrote the small tool because I'm planing to allow users to read man
pages :-)
Eli please, don't get me wrong. I can use man pages, they are fine
for me but I think you must be coherent:
1) If you say: info files must be in a format readable by *any* DOS
editor.
2) Then I say: man pages too.
I fail to understand why (1) is so clear to you (isn't clear for me)
and you don't agree with (2). Even when (2) is even worst than (1)
(there are a lot of DOS tools that support \n as end of line, none
that supports "backspace enhanced").
SET
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Visit my home page: http://set-soft.home.ml.org/
or
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Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET). (Electronics Engineer)
Alternative e-mail: set-soft AT usa DOT net set AT computer DOT org
ICQ: 2951574
Address: Curapaligue 2124, Caseros, 3 de Febrero
Buenos Aires, (1678), ARGENTINA
TE: +(541) 759 0013
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