Re: Improve initdb and pg_controldata manual pages

Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> > Well, looking at the detailed option list, it looks fine:
>
> >     -D directory
> >     --pgdata=directory
>
> > It is only at the top where we see the problem because -D/--pgdata is a
> > required argument and there are necessary spaces because we are showing
> > both -D and --pgdata followed by a single argument.  The original patch
> > creator added '=' to be consistent with the syntax used below.
>
> > The bottom line is that there are many doc cases where this is used:
>
> >     -D directory
> >     --pgdata directory
>
> > (no '='), so we should decide what we want in the docs.
>
> Right.  I think it's fine if the syntax summary shows only those cases,
> especially if the detailed option list shows that "=" is possible too.
> What is important to me is that the summary not suggest illegal syntaxes
> to people.

Of course, the open question is do we prefer '=' to be used in the
detailed descriptions.

> > Does professionally produced documentation have as many inconsistencies?
>
> Hard to say.  We have the problem that our docs were made by a lot of
> people over a long period of time, so inconsistencies are a fact of
> life.  "Pro" documentation might be more consistent if it's written by a
> smaller group of people over a shorter period of time...

We probably have higher quality but lower consistency.

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +