Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] system_data_types.7: Add 'void *'

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 2 Oct 2020 at 12:49, Jonathan Wakely <jwakely.gcc@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2 Oct 2020 at 09:28, Alejandro Colomar via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
> > However, it might be good that someone starts a page called
> > 'type_qualifiers(7)' or something like that.
>
> Who is this for? Who is trying to learn C from man pages? Should
> somebody stop them?

Yes, I think so. To add context, Alex has been doing a lot of work to
build up the new system_data_types(7) page [1], which I think is
especially useful for the POSIX system data types that are used with
various APIs. With the addition of the integer types and 'void *'
things are straying somewhat from POSIX into C. I think there is value
in saying something about those types, but I'm somewhat neutral about
their inclusion in the page. But Alex has done the work, and I'm
willing to include those types in the page.

I do think that something like type_qualifiers(7) strays over the line
of what should be covered in Linux man-pages, which are primarily
about the kernel + libc APIs. [2]

Thanks,

Michael

[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/man7/system_data_types.7
[2] Mind you, man-pages trayed over the line already very many years
ago with operators(7), because who ever remembers all of the C
operator precedences.

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/