4 ms·

Off-topic, but Bash's manpage is awful and a great demonstration of the limitation of manpages. Not that the content is bad (it's great!), but as OP (and you)

Off-topic, but Bash's manpage is awful and a great demonstration of the limitation of manpages. Not that the content is bad (it's great!), but as OP (and you) demonstrated, finding relevant information is close to impossible in the humongous document. In Bash's defense, its manpage is a concession to people's habits, and its documentation really rests in its Info page. Except that doesn't seem to be popular either (I'll admit to being still inexperienced with its UI, after decades of sparse usage)...

AceJohnny2 5y ago
Perl (and Git and TCL) seem to have found a middle ground, where they broke up their manpages into different ones that refer to each other (via "SEE ALSO" section at the bottom). But it's sad that, in 2021, we still have such a poor terminal documentation system, and the improvement invented 40 years ago (Info) gained no steam...
godshatter 5y ago
I always forget about the info command, even though it's mentioned in most man pages. So I typed "info bash", and went looking for the "set" command with my almost null knowledge of the info command. It took me a while, but I eventually found it's description under indexes/built-in index/set. It was surprisingly more difficult to find than just looking in the man page, but did take me much less time since I didn't need to skim the whole document to find it. Typing "info info" was actually really helpful, though. Info has a lot more power than I knew about. Typing "i set" while in info brought me right to the set command description. Guess I should learn the tools a bit better.
massysett 5y ago
Contrary to typical GNU practice, the bash info manual states that it is intended as a “ brief introduction” and that the man page is the definitive reference on shell behavior: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.htm...
- AceJohnny2 5y ago
  Oh god yes, I remember being confused and frustrated by that statement.

AceJohnny2 5y ago

Perl (and Git and TCL) seem to have found a middle ground, where they broke up their manpages into different ones that refer to each other (via "SEE ALSO" section at the bottom). But it's sad that, in 2021, we still have such a poor terminal documentation system, and the improvement invented 40 years ago (Info) gained no steam...

godshatter 5y ago

I always forget about the info command, even though it's mentioned in most man pages. So I typed "info bash", and went looking for the "set" command with my almost null knowledge of the info command. It took me a while, but I eventually found it's description under indexes/built-in index/set. It was surprisingly more difficult to find than just looking in the man page, but did take me much less time since I didn't need to skim the whole document to find it. Typing "info info" was actually really helpful, though. Info has a lot more power than I knew about. Typing "i set" while in info brought me right to the set command description. Guess I should learn the tools a bit better.

massysett 5y ago

Contrary to typical GNU practice, the bash info manual states that it is intended as a “ brief introduction” and that the man page is the definitive reference on shell behavior: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.htm...

AceJohnny2 5y ago
Oh god yes, I remember being confused and frustrated by that statement.