::scr Internet Explorer - Danger in numbers?

[David Cantrell]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2002 at 05:44:52PM +0100, Arvid Gidhagen wrote:

> > What is wrong with terse? 
> 
> Nothing, as long as you know what the terse text means. But to know
> this, you have to be taught by someone.
> 
> This is what "man chmod" produces, and to get this far, you have to
> know that the commands "man" and "chmod" exist and that you need
> chmod to change your file security.

Yes, and this will be noted in the handy-dandy Beginners' Guide To Unix
that your vendor or sysadmin will supply <cough>.

> NAME
>      chmod - change mode of a file
> 
> SYNOPSIS
>      integer*4 function chmod (name, mode)
>      character*(*) name, mode

Then your system is set up wrong.  That is the C library documentation.
It is not surprising that you find it incomprehensible, for this is
not the droid^Wpage you are looking for.

I won't repeat the entire documentation for chmod from this system, but
suffice to say it not only tells you all the options and what they mean,
but it even gives examples.  Those seven pages of docs are not only
complete, they are also useful.  The only assumptions I can see in it
are the ability to use man(1) - for it refers to a few other pages - and
simple boolean logic.  Neither of those is unreasonable, for I learnt
Boolean logic at school, and I had to already know about man to get at
the man page.

-- 
Grand Inquisitor Reverend David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

  attractivating: inducing the quality of being attractive,
     especially to members of the appropriate sex.  -- Henrik Levkowetz