Jim Meyering wrote:
> "A. Costa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > 1) Sentence #3 ("The string may contain...") might go before #2, ("If
> > empty...").
> >
> > 2) Suggest 's/If empty the/An empty/'. Less to think of.
> >
> > 3) Are five instances of the plural noun "items" necessary? The
> > plural doesn't make logical sense for one-shot items, e.g. "may
> > contain ... day of week itemS?", but the 'touch' date string
> > contains at most one day.
>
> Good suggestions.
> Would you mind sending a patch?
I know this was addressed to A. Costa but it was fresh in my mind so...
How about this?
git fetch --no-tags git://git.proulx.com/coreutils date-string2:date-string2
diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 31b0e14..cb67e99 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2008-01-30 Bob Proulx <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
+
+ Improve wording of date and time man page.
+ * man/date.x: Improve compact description of the --date=STRING.
+ * man/touch.x: Likewise.
+ Suggested by A. Costa.
+
2008-01-30 Jim Meyering <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* src/c99-to-c89.diff: Adjust remove.c offsets, again.
diff --git a/man/date.x b/man/date.x
index c6e3a65..bbcbafc 100644
--- a/man/date.x
+++ b/man/date.x
@@ -6,8 +6,8 @@ date \- print or set the system date and time
.\" NOTE: keep this paragraph in sync with the one in touch.x
The --date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string
such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29 16:21:42" or
-even "next Thursday". If empty the string indicates the beginning of
-the day. The string may contain calendar date items, time of day
-items, time zone items, day of week items, relative items, and pure
-numbers. The date string format is more complex than is easily
+even "next Thursday". A date string may contain items indicating
+calendar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time,
+relative date, and numbers. An empty string indicates the beginning
+of the day. The date string format is more complex than is easily
documented here but is fully described in the info documentation.
diff --git a/man/touch.x b/man/touch.x
index 71f405b..6c3aac2 100644
--- a/man/touch.x
+++ b/man/touch.x
@@ -6,8 +6,8 @@ touch \- change file timestamps
.\" NOTE: keep this paragraph in sync with the one in date.x
The --date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string
such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29 16:21:42" or
-even "next Thursday". If empty the string indicates the beginning of
-the day. The string may contain calendar date items, time of day
-items, time zone items, day of week items, relative items, and pure
-numbers. The date string format is more complex than is easily
+even "next Thursday". A date string may contain items indicating
+calendar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time,
+relative date, and numbers. An empty string indicates the beginning
+of the day. The date string format is more complex than is easily
documented here but is fully described in the info documentation.
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