Re: [PATCH man-pages v6] Document encoded I/O

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

Hi Alex,

On 12/1/20 10:35 PM, Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) wrote:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> On 12/1/20 9:20 PM, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
>>>>>>> +.SS Security
>>>>>>> +Encoded I/O creates the potential for some security issues:
>>>>>>> +.IP * 3
>>>>>>> +Encoded writes allow writing arbitrary data which the kernel will decode on
>>>>>>> +a subsequent read. Decompression algorithms are complex and may have bugs
>>>>>>> +which can be exploited by maliciously crafted data.
>>>>>>> +.IP *
>>>>>>> +Encoded reads may return data which is not logically present in the file
>>>>>>> +(see the discussion of
>>>>>>> +.I len
>>>>>>> +vs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Please, s/vs./vs/
>>>>>> See the reasons below:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Michael (mtk),
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here the renderer outputs a double space
>>>>>> (as for separating two sentences).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Are you okay with that?
>>>
>>> Yes, that should probably be avoided. I'm not sure what the
>>> correct way is to prevent that in groff though. I mean, one
>>> could write
>>>
>>> .RI "vs.\ " unencoded_len
>>>
>>> but I think that simply creates a nonbreaking space,
>>> which is not exactly what is desired.
>>
>> Ahh -- found it. From https://groff.ffii.org/groff/groff-1.21.pdf,
>> we can write:
>>
>> vs.\&
>>
>> to prevent the double space.
> 
> Nice to see it's possible.
> However, I would argue for simplicity,
> and use a simple 'vs',
> which is already in use.

Indeed better. Thanks for noticing that.

Thanks,

Michael


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