help \> gripes

[Dan Jacobson]

Firstly 'help''s output isn't ideal when truncated like this, even in
one's wide terminal window:

 function NAME { COMMANDS ; } or NA getopts optstring name [arg]
 hash [-r] [-p pathname] [name ...] help [-s] [pattern ...]
 history [-c] [-d offset] [n] or hi if COMMANDS; then COMMANDS; [ elif
 jobs [-lnprs] [jobspec ...] or job kill [-s sigspec | -n signum | -si

Secondly, I forgot "2>&1 >& 1>&" intricacies, so:

$ help '>'
bash: help: no help topics match `>'.  Try `help help'.
$ help help
help: help [-s] [pattern ...]
    Display helpful information about builtin commands.  If PATTERN is
    specified, gives detailed help on all commands matching PATTERN,

Bummer, I can't guess what help topic to learn about file
redirection... I suppose I must "load" the whopping man page :-)

Also make this match a help pattern too please:
$ help \&
Of course don't make it the main way to read about '&', as newbies
will type
$ help &
therefore make help \& pattern match into a more general help 'file
redirection' topic... same with help \> etc.

By the way, on the man page, I think you gotta explain this better

       while the command

              ls 2>&1 > dirlist

       directs  only the standard output to file dirlist, because
       the standard  error  was  duplicated  as  standard  output
       before the standard output was redirected to dirlist.

or at least mention where error messages will then go or something.

       There  are two formats for redirecting standard output and
       standard error:

              &>word
       and
              >&word

Erm, please rewrite to say if these do the same thing, or if the first
one redirects the standard output and the second one the standard error.

       Of the two forms, the first is preferred.  This is  seman-
       tically equivalent to

              >word 2>&1

Please rewrite to say why it is preferred.  Also indicate which one is
the one more backwardly compatible, assuming they do the same thing.

By the way, I was playing around and
$ echo o >& |wc
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `|w'

Token  `|w' ?  How about saying token  `|' or  `|wc'

[My favorite bash bug still is ^R^R not being able to recall the last
search string.]
GNU bash, version 2.04.12(1)-release (i586-mandrake-linux-gnu)
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