Re: Bug#39463,#39482,#39493: timidity, cdrdao, cdtool has no manpage for something
On Wed, 16 Jun 1999, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> > The symlink is there for information to the user, that he doesn't
> > need to provide a bug report, because this bug is already known
> > (that's the intension of undocumented(7), as you can read in this
> > man page as well as in the policy.
> The symlink causes a stupid manpage to show up saying that there is
> no manpage. I would prefer if man would simply say there is no
> manpage.
Me too.
> The fact that there is already a bug filed is evident from the BTS.
> Why put a symlink to undocumented into the package?
Because the policy tells us to do so :-)
Or in other words: Because lintian otherwise will warn that there is
no man page available. Maybe we should change lintian, that it also
warns if there is a symlink to undocumented(7). The policy tells us,
that the lack of a man page is a bug, which isn't closed by creating
this symlink, so why doesn't lintian mention this bug?
BTW: The "fact that there is already a bug filed" when undocumented(7)
is symlinked, isn't (wasn't) true for most packages (ca. 80%) of the
packages I checked here. That's why I filed the mass of bug reports
against these packages. So the intended use (inform the user, that the
bug is already known), is very limited and the user still has to look
at the BTS, to find out whether the bug is reported.
> Sometimes I check for documentation by doing a dpkg -L. I see a
> manpage for a certain command and do a "man xxx". Result is a
> "undocumented" manpage. Very irritating.
I run into this problem very often, too.
> It would have saved some effort if there simply were no manpage.
So what about simply removing the paragraph about undocumented.7 from
the policy and change lintian to flame if there is only this symlink?
Ciao
Roland
--
* roland@spinnaker.de * http://www.spinnaker.de/ *
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