man synopsis standard compliance Post: 302149321

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers man synopsis standard compliance Post 302149321 by vkleban on Wednesday 5th of December 2007 03:35:02 PM

12-05-2007

Registered User

man synopsis standard compliance

In different online sources, I found bits and pieces of information about those square and angular brackets and pipes. From what I have read, I can conclude it looks like this:

1. Options outside any brackets are mandatory
2. Options inside these < .. > are mandatory too
3. Options inside [ .. ] are optional
4. | works like an "exclusive or", separating options inside the brackets they are placed (or outside in case they are not inside any brackets).
5. Options listed with no separators with '-' in front (ex: -abcd) can be used in any combination with each other (i.e. "inclusive or")

First problem is that I'm not even sure I am correct here. Second, I cannot convince developers (I am a tester) to be compliant with any standard in user's manual and in help, since I cannot find any standard. Our project has several dozens of command line utilities each with elaborate parameter strings. The developers make them even more confusing by using '|' both as exclusive and inclusive or. In our latest release I realized that those confuse even me, so I'm concerned about our clients. Is there any standard to which man synopsis with those brackets and pipes is compliant? Is there any convincing source online, where that standard is carefully described?

Last edited by vkleban; 12-05-2007 at 05:33 PM..

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zipgrep

ZIPGREP(1)                                                    General Commands Manual                                                   ZIPGREP(1)

NAME

       zipgrep - search files in a ZIP archive for lines matching a pattern

SYNOPSIS

       zipgrep [egrep_options] pattern file[.zip] [file(s) ...]  [-x xfile(s) ...]

DESCRIPTION

       zipgrep  will  search  files  within  a ZIP archive for lines matching the given string or pattern.  zipgrep is a shell script and requires
       egrep(1) and unzip(1) to function.  Its output is identical to that of egrep(1).

ARGUMENTS

       pattern
              The pattern to be located within a ZIP archive.  Any string or regular expression accepted by egrep(1) may be used.  file[.zip] Path
              of  the  ZIP archive.  (Wildcard expressions for the ZIP archive name are not supported.)  If the literal filename is not found, the
              suffix .zip is appended.  Note that self-extracting ZIP files are supported, as with any other ZIP archive; just  specify  the  .exe
              suffix (if any) explicitly.

       [file(s)]
              An  optional list of archive members to be processed, separated by spaces.  If no member files are specified, all members of the ZIP
              archive are searched.  Regular expressions (wildcards) may be used to match multiple members:

              *      matches a sequence of 0 or more characters

              ?      matches exactly 1 character

              [...]  matches any single character found inside the brackets; ranges are specified by a beginning character, a hyphen, and an  end-
                     ing character.  If an exclamation point or a caret (`!' or `^') follows the left bracket, then the range of characters within
                     the brackets is complemented (that is, anything except the characters inside the brackets is considered a match).

              (Be sure to quote any character that might otherwise be interpreted or modified by the operating system.)

       [-x xfile(s)]
              An optional list of archive members to be excluded from processing.  Since wildcard characters  match  directory  separators  (`/'),
              this  option  may  be used to exclude any files that are in subdirectories.  For example, ``zipgrep grumpy foo *.[ch] -x */*'' would
              search for the string ``grumpy'' in all C source files in the main directory of the ``foo'' archive, but none in any subdirectories.
              Without the -x option, all C source files in all directories within the zipfile would be searched.

OPTIONS

       All options prior to the ZIP archive filename are passed to egrep(1).

SEE ALSO

       egrep(1), unzip(1), zip(1), funzip(1), zipcloak(1), zipinfo(1), zipnote(1), zipsplit(1)

URL

       The Info-ZIP home page is currently at
       http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/
       or
       ftp://ftp.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/ .

AUTHORS

       zipgrep was written by Jean-loup Gailly.

Info-ZIP                                                           20 April 2009                                                        ZIPGREP(1)