Re: man-pages bug report for "date(1) — Linu x manual page"

Alejandro Colomar <[email protected]> Sun, 25 Jan 2026 15:50:01 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.man,gmane.comp.gnu.core-utils.bugs
Message-ID	<aXYtHcyH4OdkuW6x@devuan>

Hi Michael,

On Sun, Jan 25, 2026 at 09:02:05AM -0500, Michael Aramini wrote:
> Alejandro, et al.,
> 
> This is a /man-pages/ bug report for "date(1) — Linux manual page" (
> https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/date.1.html ) pertaining to formatting
> of the man page.

The date(1) manual page is maintained by GNU coreutils; it's not part of
the Linux man-pages project.  I've CCed them.

> 
> The line
> 
>        *date *[/-u|--utc|--universal/] [/MMDDhhmm/[[/CC/]/YY/][/.ss/]]
> 
> represented in HTML as
> 
> <b>date </b>[<i>-u|--utc|--universal</i>]
> [<i>MMDDhhmm</i>[[<i>CC</i>]<i>YY</i>][<i>.ss</i>]]
> 
> should, following man page formatting style, be formatted
> 
>        *date *[*-u*|*--utc*|*--universal*] [/MMDDhhmm/[[/CC/]/YY/][*.*/ss/]]
> 
> represented in HTML as
> 
> <b>date </b>[<b-u</b>|<b>--utc</b>|<b>--universal</b>]
> [<i>MMDDhhmm</i>[[<i>CC</i>]<i>YY</i>][<b>.</b><i>ss</i>]]
> 
> I.e. the "*-u*", "*--utc*", "*--universal*", and decimal point should be
> (*non*-italic) *bold* as they are are not variables, but are potentially
> verbatim text on the command line.  Also, the vertical bars are syntax
> symbols, which are neither variables nor verbatim text, thus should be in
> regular/roman typeface, *not* italic (nor bold).

I agree with the bug report.


> -Michael

Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es>

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