Re: manual

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 2022-12-21 22:31, Lawrence Velázquez wrote:
>
> It already says where to look.
>
> 	For the meaning of the other flags, see zshoptions(1).

I know it.  They send you to another section entirely which is 1487 
lines long.  Not very friendly.  Please understand that it's my 'job' in 
a discussion like this to be crabby and snotty and hard to please.   
Devil's advocate is what I'm being.


> 	Some options also have one or more single letter names.
> 	There are two sets of single letter options: one used by
> 	default, and another used to emulate sh/ksh (used when the
> 	SH_OPTION_LETTERS option is set).  The single letter options
> 	can be used on the shell command line, or with the `set',
> 	`setopt' and `unsetopt' builtins, as normal Unix options preceded
> 	by `-'.
>
> 	The sense of the single letter options may be inverted by
> 	using `+' instead of `-'.  Some of the single letter option
> 	names refer to an option being off, in which case the
> 	inversion of that name refers to the option being on.  For
> 	example, `+n' is the short name of `exec', and `-n' is the
> 	short name of its inversion, `noexec'.
>
That's quite well written.  Throw in some examples and it's good. But 
one should not have to go hunting for that information.  Unless ... 
there is some heavy reason why that's needed, in which case there should 
be a note to that effect: "( The subject of options is so extensive that 
it requires it's own elaboration and can't be fully explained here.  
Please see 'zshoptions' in the manual for a full development of the 
topic.)" ... or something like that.
>
> The synopsis makes it quite clear that -A and +A can be used alone.
>
> 	set ... [ {+|-}A [ name ] ] ...

Clear to you but not to me.  I missed it.  The expert will always find 
the manual good enough but that's not the test.  The test is whether the 
student found it good enough.  (Mind, there will be times when the 
student, fallible human that he is, might miss something that really is 
well explained.  And to be honest, I think that's the case here -- it is 
good enough, but overwhelmed as I was by everything else, I missed the 
easy part.)  Again, I hardly expected to get it right the first time, 
that would be a miracle.  It was a template.

The only thing that matters is that I've got a few of you guys thinking 
about all this :-)