Re: documenting Unix command lines; more than one line

[figmo -at- RAHUL -dot- NET]

Stephen D. Martin wrote:
>
>Alexia Prendergast wrote:
>
>> Yes, I'm aware of that -- but that wasn't the original question.
>> The question was how to format one line that the user enters
>> at once, not break it up into several lines for the user to enter
>> one-at-a-time. (At least, that was my understanding, but I could
>> very well have misunderstood ;-)
>
>Regardless of the question I think indenting is superior to the
>backslash.  The Unix "power user" (synonym for geek?), shouldn't need
>the manual at all (grin), or at least should be able to recognize that
>the second line of text is not a distinct command line (especially with
>all that white space ahead of it).
>
>One should also think of the non-power user, the poor smuck who'll end
>up typing in that backslash, and who'll end up getting an
>incomprehensible error message.  Assuming that Jen and Eric User do try
>to type the indented line as a distinct command, they are more likely to
>get a helpful error message.

Begging your pardon, but the non-power user who types that backslash will
have the right thing happen for them.

In the UNIX shells, the backslash character signifies the command is
continued on the next line.  Thus, entering:

    mycommand parameter1 parameter2 \
        parameter3 parameter4

is equivalent to entering:

    mycommand parameter1 parameter2 parameter3 parameter4

Therefore, the backslash IS the correct solution.

--Lynn
(long-time UNIX documentation writer)

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