Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: tcpd remarks warning
From: wietse () PORCUPINE ORG (Wietse Venema)
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 20:22:11 -0500
Paul M. Cardon:
+ A newline character is ignored when it is preceded by a backslash character. This permits you to break up long lines so that they are easier to edit. + Blank lines or lines that begin with a `#' character are ignored. This permits you to insert comments and whitespace so that the tables are easier to read. If you make the assumption that the rules are applied as listed in the man page then the observed behavior of line continuation processing occuring prior to comment stripping matches the documentation.
I'm glad to see confirmed that the documentation actually matches the program's behavior. Why then the griping? It seems to me that people have preconceptions about how software works, and fail to pick up the signals in the documentation that are in conflict with their preconceptions. For me, this is not just a simple documentation problem. Changing people's preconceptions is beyond my abilities. However, calling this a bug in the beholder's eye was not appropriate. I can deal with this case of misreading just like I dealt with misreading in the past, that is, by adding more redundancy to the documentation. I can deal with this case of misconfiguration just like I dealt with misconfiguration in the past, that is, by adding a warning for backslash-newline-hash. Wietse
Current thread:
- tcpd remarks warning Stefano Torricella (Apr 01)
- Re: tcpd remarks warning Greg A. Woods (Apr 02)
- Re: tcpd remarks warning John Line (Apr 02)
- Re: tcpd remarks warning Doug White (Apr 02)
- Re: tcpd remarks warning Paul M. Cardon (Apr 02)
- Re: tcpd remarks warning Wietse Venema (Apr 02)
- Re: tcpd remarks warning Wietse Venema (Apr 02)
- Re: tcpd remarks warning Greg A. Woods (Apr 02)