Re: url's in --help output

[Eric Blake]

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According to Jim Meyering on 1/30/2009 11:51 AM:
>>
>> 1) The two above aren't sentences.
>> 2) Adding punctuation around url's just makes them more painful to cut
>>    and paste.  It's easiest when it's bare text at the end of a line.
>>
> 
> I too have been annoyed with the punctuation around links
> like that.  So in the spirit of setting a good example,
> here's what would need to be done to adjust the 100+
> programs in coreutils to print --help like you suggest,
> while retaining sensible formatting in man pages.

I really like seeing the <> around URLs in a text format; it also helps
when using a URL embedded in a sentence, so that you can distinguish
between a trailing . that is part of the URL vs. a URL that ends a
sentence.  I'm okay with leaving the trailing '.' off of non-sentences in
the --help output, given that we start a new line for each phrase
containing a reference; but prefer seeing the '.' in the man pages (where
line-wrapping no longer gives the visual indication that there are three
separate contact points, even if none of the contact directions are
complete sentences).  I'm undecided about whether we should use <> around
the email address, or just the URLs (but a third option, using "<mailto:";
and ">" as a form of URL, doesn't look as nice to me as the first two).

> 
> Teaching help2man not to format the REPORTING BUGS sections
> wasn't hard,

Right now, coreutils uses its own fork of help2man.  What will it take to
get these modifications back upstream, so that everyone can benefit from a
new release of help2man?

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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