Errors in man pages, here: st(4): Understanding

Errors in man pages, here: st(4): Understanding

[Helge Kreutzmann]

Dear manpages maintainers.
the manpage-l10n project maintains a large number of translations of
man pages both from a large variety of sources (including manpages) as
well for a large variety of target languages.

During their work translators notice different possible issues in the
original (english) man pages. Sometiems this is a straightforward
typo, sometimes a hard to read sentence, sometimes this is a convention
not held up and sometimes we simply do not understand the original.

We use several distributions as sources and update regularly (at
least every 2 month). This means we are fairly recent (some
distributions like archlinux also update frequently) but might miss
the latest upstream version once a while, so the error might be
already fixed. We apologize and ask you to close the issue immediately
if this should be the case, but given the huge volume of projects and
the very limited number of volunteers we are not able to double check
each and every issue.

Secondly we translators see the manpages in the neutral po format,
i.e. converted and harmonized, but not the original source (be it man,
groff, xml or other). So we cannot provide a true patch (where
possible), but only an approximation which you need to translate into
your source format.

Finally the issues I'm reporting have accumulated over time and are
not always discovered by me, so sometimes my description of the
problem my be a bit limited - do not hesitate to ask so we can clarify
them.

I'm now reporting the errors for your project. As requested, each
issue is sent in an unique mail for easier tracking on your side. If
future reports should use another channel, please let me know.

**

The last sentence is unclear, what "list above"?  And booleans?

"Set various drive and driver options according to bits encoded in "
"I<mt_count>.  These consist of the drive's buffering mode, a set of Boolean "
"driver options, the buffer write threshold, defaults for the block size and "
"density, and timeouts (only in kernels 2.1 and later).  A single operation "
"can affect only one item in the list above (the Booleans counted as one "
"item.)"

-- 
      Dr. Helge Kreutzmann                     debian@helgefjell.de
           Dipl.-Phys.                   http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php
        64bit GNU powered                     gpg signed mail preferred
           Help keep free software libre: http://www.ffii.de/

Re: Errors in man pages, here: st(4): Understanding

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

[CC += Kai]

On 4/19/20 8:48 AM, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> Dear manpages maintainers.
> the manpage-l10n project maintains a large number of translations of
> man pages both from a large variety of sources (including manpages) as
> well for a large variety of target languages.
> 
> During their work translators notice different possible issues in the
> original (english) man pages. Sometiems this is a straightforward
> typo, sometimes a hard to read sentence, sometimes this is a convention
> not held up and sometimes we simply do not understand the original.
> 
> We use several distributions as sources and update regularly (at
> least every 2 month). This means we are fairly recent (some
> distributions like archlinux also update frequently) but might miss
> the latest upstream version once a while, so the error might be
> already fixed. We apologize and ask you to close the issue immediately
> if this should be the case, but given the huge volume of projects and
> the very limited number of volunteers we are not able to double check
> each and every issue.
> 
> Secondly we translators see the manpages in the neutral po format,
> i.e. converted and harmonized, but not the original source (be it man,
> groff, xml or other). So we cannot provide a true patch (where
> possible), but only an approximation which you need to translate into
> your source format.
> 
> Finally the issues I'm reporting have accumulated over time and are
> not always discovered by me, so sometimes my description of the
> problem my be a bit limited - do not hesitate to ask so we can clarify
> them.
> 
> I'm now reporting the errors for your project. As requested, each
> issue is sent in an unique mail for easier tracking on your side. If
> future reports should use another channel, please let me know.
> 
> **
> 
> The last sentence is unclear, what "list above"?  And booleans?
> 
> "Set various drive and driver options according to bits encoded in "
> "I<mt_count>.  These consist of the drive's buffering mode, a set of Boolean "
> "driver options, the buffer write threshold, defaults for the block size and "
> "density, and timeouts (only in kernels 2.1 and later).  A single operation "
> "can affect only one item in the list above (the Booleans counted as one "
> "item.)"

I agree that it's unclear, but I don't kjnow what the fix is. Perhaps
kai can help.

Kai, the problematic text is this:


       MTSETDRVBUFFER
              Set various drive and  driver  options  according  to  bits
              encoded  in mt_count.  These consist of the drive's buffer‐
              ing mode, a set of Boolean driver options, the buffer write
              threshold,  defaults  for  the  block size and density, and
              timeouts (only in kernels 2.1 and later).  A single  opera‐
              tion  can affect only one item in the list above (the Bool‐
              eans counted as one item.)

Do you know what the "list above" refers to?

Thanks,

Michael

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

Re: Errors in man pages, here: st(4): Understanding

["Kai Mäkisara (Kolumbus)"]

> On 20. Apr 2020, at 11.02, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) <mtk.manpages@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> [CC += Kai]
> 
> On 4/19/20 8:48 AM, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
>> Dear manpages maintainers
...
> 
> I agree that it's unclear, but I don't kjnow what the fix is. Perhaps
> kai can help.
> 
> Kai, the problematic text is this:
> 
> 
>       MTSETDRVBUFFER
>              Set various drive and  driver  options  according  to  bits
>              encoded  in mt_count.  These consist of the drive's buffer‐
>              ing mode, a set of Boolean driver options, the buffer write
>              threshold,  defaults  for  the  block size and density, and
>              timeouts (only in kernels 2.1 and later).  A single  opera‐
>              tion  can affect only one item in the list above (the Bool‐
>              eans counted as one item.)
> 
> Do you know what the "list above" refers to?
> 
It should be “list below” (there are lots of options and an example).

Thanks,
Kai

Re: Errors in man pages, here: st(4): Understanding

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

On Mon, 20 Apr 2020 at 17:36, "Kai Mäkisara (Kolumbus)"
<kai.makisara@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 20. Apr 2020, at 11.02, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) <mtk.manpages@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > [CC += Kai]
> >
> > On 4/19/20 8:48 AM, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> >> Dear manpages maintainers
> ...
> >
> > I agree that it's unclear, but I don't kjnow what the fix is. Perhaps
> > kai can help.
> >
> > Kai, the problematic text is this:
> >
> >
> >       MTSETDRVBUFFER
> >              Set various drive and  driver  options  according  to  bits
> >              encoded  in mt_count.  These consist of the drive's buffer‐
> >              ing mode, a set of Boolean driver options, the buffer write
> >              threshold,  defaults  for  the  block size and density, and
> >              timeouts (only in kernels 2.1 and later).  A single  opera‐
> >              tion  can affect only one item in the list above (the Bool‐
> >              eans counted as one item.)
> >
> > Do you know what the "list above" refers to?
> >
> It should be “list below” (there are lots of options and an example).

Thanks, Kai.

Cheers,

Michael

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