From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757719AbXLUJ5h (ORCPT ); Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:57:37 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754698AbXLUJ5a (ORCPT ); Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:57:30 -0500 Received: from rhun.apana.org.au ([64.62.148.172]:3312 "EHLO arnor.apana.org.au" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753102AbXLUJ53 (ORCPT ); Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:57:29 -0500 From: Herbert Xu To: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox) Subject: Re: Trailing periods in kernel messages Cc: joe@perches.com, davem@davemloft.net, apw@shadowen.org, lizf@cn.fujitsu.com, akpm@linux-foundation.org, elendil@planet.nl, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, tglx@linutronix.de, trivial@kernel.org, rdunlap@xenotime.net, jschopp@austin.ibm.com Organization: Core In-Reply-To: <20071220220853.4f7c639c@the-village.bc.nu> X-Newsgroups: apana.lists.os.linux.kernel User-Agent: tin/1.7.4-20040225 ("Benbecula") (UNIX) (Linux/2.6.17-rc4 (i686)) Message-Id: Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:56:40 +0800 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Alan Cox wrote: > > I do not believe "opinions" are relevant here. Relevant would be cites > from respected style guides (Fowlers, Oxford Guide To Style et al.) to > show they do not need a full stop. > > I've not found one, but I am open to references. Well from where I come from, full stops are only used for complete sentences. For example, http://www.ballarat.edu.au/aasp/student/learning_support/generalguide/ch01s05s02.shtml As to what is a complete sentence, that is debatable. However, typically it would include a subject and a predicate. By this rule the following line is not a complete sentence: [XFS] Initialise current offset in xfs_file_readdir correctly The reason is that it lacks a subject. Of course I would completely agree that some kernel messages are complete sentences and should have a full stop. However, it is not clear to me that this is the case for all or even most kernel printk messages. Cheers, -- Visit Openswan at http://www.openswan.org/ Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmV>HI~} Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/ PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt