Re: Improve initdb and pg_controldata manual pages

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 necesary 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.

> 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...

            regards, tom lane