[CC to cvs2svn developer list. The original Debian bug report is here:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=624535
.]
I'm the cvs2svn maintainer and would like to fix the man pages upstream
if possible.
Since cvs2svn 2.3, the cvs2svn software can generate manpages by itself,
using (mostly) the same data that are used by the command-line
processing code. The intention was that as part of the packaging
procedure, packagers would do something like "make man", which runs
./cvs2svn --man >cvs2svn.1
./cvs2git --man >cvs2git.1
./cvs2bzr --man >cvs2bzr.1
. This method also yields more uniform manpages across the three tools.
But now I realize that the Debian package doesn't do this; instead it
includes hardcoded manpages (perhaps derived from the manpage from an
earlier version of cvs2svn?)
I think it would be easier for everybody to use the generated manpages.
If the automatically-generated manpages have problems, I offer to try
to fix them upstream to avoid the need for packagers to maintain their
own versions of the manpages.
I know very little about troff etc; in fact the generated manpages were
constructed by backwards-engineering the old hand-written manpages. So
I am very open to feedback (or patches) about how to improve the
automatically-generated manpages. I would even be willing to accept a
patch to the automatically-generated manpages and backwards-engineer the
changes needed in the manpage-generating code.
So I guess the following input would help me most:
1. Feedback from the Debian package maintainer about whether the
automatically-generated manpages are an acceptable substitute for the
hand-written ones, or if not, what should be changed.
2. Feedback (e.g., from Reuben Thomas) about the stylistic improvements
needed in the *automatically-generated* manpages. This could be in a
form of a patch against the automatically-generated manpages. (Please
note that some of the changes suggested in your attached patch have
already been made in the automatically-generated manpages.)
Thanks,
Michael
--
Michael Haggerty
[email protected]
http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/
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