colonel@ellie.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (04/21/86)
The syntax for tail(1) is
tail [-options] [file]
Excess file arguments are silently ignored. No big deal, but should
be manualled under BUGS.
It's bad enough that they started numbering from 1 instead of 0 ...
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel@buffalo-cs
BI: csdsicher@sunyabvawoods%hao@hao.UUCP (04/24/86)
> The syntax for tail(1) is > > tail [-options] [file] > > Excess file arguments are silently ignored. No big deal, but should > be manualled under BUGS. Actually, the "standard" syntax for documentation (the real problem is that there is no such thing!) has a word mean exactly one of that item, and a word followed by an ellipsis (...) meaning one or more of that item. In other words, as written above it implies that exactly one (or zero, since the file argument is optional as indicated by []) file name is allowed. To indicate zero or more, the syntax would be "[file...]" and to indicate one or more the syntax would be "file...". "file" would mean exactly one. That impromptu standard seems to be adhered to throughout most of the 4.2 manuals. As written, "[file]" means one or zero files, which is what the actual program recognizes. --Greg