Re: Bugreport for ChMod

[Jim Meyering]

Michael Gorbovitski <address@hidden> wrote:
> chmod --help
> results in :
>       help for chmod
>       ......
>       Each MODE is of the form `[ugoa]*([-+=]([rwxXst]*|[ugo]))+'.
>
>       Report bugs to <address@hidden>.
>
>
> The above regular expression is unparsable by most people requesting the help.
> Reasoning:
> chmod is a basic linux command. If the user is requesting help for it, he is 
> most likely a *nix
> novice. Assuming that he is intimately familiar with regular expressions 
> seems counterintuitive,
> given the prior assumption.
>
> Maybe we could add several examples, to either the help or the man page?
>
> And no, neither the man page

Thanks for the report, but...

The man page is derived mechanically from --help output,
possibly with additions from a corresponding man/*.x file.
The --help output is deliberately kept brief.
However, the output of "man 1 chmod" from coreutils-6.11 is
127 lines long.  Maybe you're using an older version?

> nor the info page is much better.

The man page does refer to the info documentation,
which includes in-depth discussion of "symbolic modes"
(i.e., type "info coreutils 'file perm' sym").