Re: [Bug-tar] tar auto detect compression

[gene heskett]

On Saturday, January 14, 2012 09:37:42 AM Andreas Dilger did opine:

> On 2012-01-14, at 2:35, Sergey Poznyakoff <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Mark Krenz <address@hidden> ha escrit:
> >>  Really?  In 25+ years they've never released a man page?
> > 
> > No, and there are no plans of doing so either. Tar is fully documented
> > in texinfo format. The manual is included in the distribution. Apart
> > from that, it is available online in various formats at
> > http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual. Given all that, I see no
> > reason in any additional man pages.
> 
> I think this is a pretty narrow view on the world. In all the years that
> I've been using *nix systems, I still don't really find the GNU info
> pages very useful compared to man pages because the user interface is
> completely non-intuitive.
> 
> Up and down arrows working? Does <enter> select the link under the
> cursor? Nope. Does the status bar at the bottom of the screen show how
> to get help on the keys?  Nope. Does '?' get help? Nope.
> 
> If every distro is making the effort to develop and maintain man pages,
> this is a pretty clear indication that users find man pages useful. If
> this is being contributed to the tar project, it seems reasonable to
> accept the man page instead of forcing divergent and incomplete man
> pages to be maintained externally.
> 
> Cheers, Andreas

+100 Andreas, although the 'info' situation is ameliorated to a large 
extent by using 'pinfo', the format still isn't near as handy as just 
typing 'man tar'.  Something I can do here for a pretty complete and 
perhaps too concise even if it is equ to quite a few pages if printed.  Tar 
is a complex beast to understand fully.

However, 'pinfo tar' appears to in this case, to present a more complete 
reference to tar than the man page I have, with a tutorial section and 
possibly a longer discussion of each option and its interaction with others 
and the output.

Cheers, Gene
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