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Re: documenting Unix command lines; more than one line
Subject:Re: documenting Unix command lines; more than one line From:"Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 9 Sep 1997 12:13:11 -0500
What error message? as far as UNIX is concerned,
foo \
bar
is exactly the same as
foo bar
Mike Huber
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Stephen D. Martin [SMTP:smartin -at- RC -dot- GC -dot- CA]
>Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 1997 11:53 AM
>To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject: Re: documenting Unix command lines; more than one line
>
>Alexia Prendergast wrote:
>
>> Yes, I'm aware of that -- but that wasn't the original question.
>> The question was how to format one line that the user enters
>> at once, not break it up into several lines for the user to enter
>> one-at-a-time. (At least, that was my understanding, but I could
>> very well have misunderstood ;-)
>
>Regardless of the question I think indenting is superior to the
>backslash. The Unix "power user" (synonym for geek?), shouldn't need
>the manual at all (grin), or at least should be able to recognize that
>the second line of text is not a distinct command line (especially with
>all that white space ahead of it).
>
>One should also think of the non-power user, the poor smuck who'll end
>up typing in that backslash, and who'll end up getting an
>incomprehensible error message. Assuming that Jen and Eric User do try
>to type the indented line as a distinct command, they are more likely to
>get a helpful error message.
>
>Cheers!
>
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