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Re: [PATCH] Markup in the NAME section is not portable

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From:
Michael G Schwern
Date:
March 4, 2009 13:32
Subject:
Re: [PATCH] Markup in the NAME section is not portable
Message ID:
49AEF352.7010303@pobox.com
Niko Tyni wrote:
> As discussed in [rt.cpan.org #43078] and Debian bug #304143,
> markup in the NAME section of manual pages is not portable.
> 
> In particular, the whatis parser on Debian cannot handle C<> in whatis
> entries, resulting in garbage like
> 
>  c2ph (1) - Dump C structures as generated from *(C`cc - g - S*(C' stabs
> 
> My tests indicate Solaris 10 and Tru64 5.1 are affected too.
> 
>  http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=43078
>  http://bugs.debian.org/304143

According to that bug, the problem is the bad formatting in the man page which
suggests a bug or impoliteness in Pod::Man and an inadequacy in whatis' roff
parsing.  Stripping C<> from the docs is just treating the symptom.

It seems the patch to make Pod::Man more polite about C<> in NAME in 43078 is
sufficient.


-- 
24. Must not tell any officer that I am smarter than they are, especially
    if it's true.
    -- The 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army
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