Re: umask has no man page?

[Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu>]

Carl Fink <carl@finknetwork.com> writes:

> When I wanted the options for umask, I typed 'man umask' and got the man
> page for it as a C header diretive? (I'm not a C programmer, but it seemed
> to be for C header files and came from section 2.)
>
> This is darn confusing for a new user. I have been around long enough
> (slink) that I quickly realized it must be a Bash builtin and found that man
> page, but how would a beginner know that? Surely a symbolic link could be
> set up for umask as well as the others (bg, eval, fg, read, etc.)?
>
> Should I file this as a bug against Sid? I know there's no chance it will
> make it into Wheezy.

The underlying problem is that umask isn't a standalone command, it's a
shell builtin.  So if you look at the bash manpage you can find the
(very terse) documention; of course, there's no hint anywhere that you
should do that.  Just as for (looking at some other builtins) ulimit,
unalias, unset....