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Re: GNU make man page typo


From: Philip Guenther
Subject: Re: GNU make man page typo
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2021 10:36:31 -0900

On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 5:07 AM Zach Petch <zachpetch@gmail.com> wrote:
This is minor in the grand scheme of things, but I noticed a typo in the man page for GNU make. In case it makes a difference, I was on a Mac running macOS Big Sur 11.5.2 when I came across the typo.

The second paragraph under DESCRIPTION reads,

> To prepare to use make, you must write a file called the makefile that describes the relationships among files in your program, and the states the commands for updating each file.

It appears that the first use of "the" after the second comma should either be "then" or quite possibly should simply not exist at all. That portion of the sentence would then read either,

> and then states the commands for updating each file

or,

> and states the commands for updating each file

and would, at the very least, reduce the likelihood of people like myself (who need to read slowly and carefully to understand things like man pages) from getting temporarily tripped up by the wording of that line.

I recognize that this is minor and somewhat pedantic, but I appreciate you taking the time to read this.

I'm pretty sure that it was a typo/thinko for "that states", making the full sentence:

To prepare to use make, you must write a file called the makefile that describes the relationships among files in your program and that states the commands for updating each file.


I also think the second comma is incorrect ("comma splice") and suggest removing it as seen above: even the 'Oxford comma' rule only applies to lists of three or more items.

Philip Guenther


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