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From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: another bug in tail(1)
Message-ID: <2071@hao.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Apr-86 19:21:22 EST
Article-I.D.: hao.2071
Posted: Wed Apr 23 19:21:22 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 25-Apr-86 04:46:46 EST
References: <990@ellie.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 18

> 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