Re: improvements to terminal-colors.d.5.adoc were undone

On Mon, Mar 09, 2026 at 05:08:19PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> 
> Op 09-03-2026 om 11:51 schreef Karel Zak:
> > >   lib/terminal-colors.d.5.adoc | 24 ++++++++++--------------
> > >   1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)
> > 
> > Both patches have been applied. Thank you, and sorry for the delay.
> 
> The second patch was applied in commit 3252142521, but three commits
> later, merge commit d708fc7db6 undoes all the improvements I made.  :/

My mistake, sorry I'll fix it.

> Also, that merge commit says that it just removes the backticks from a
> table, but it actually changes back two simple lists to large, bulky
> tables.

The tables are a better solution than the list for translators. See
discussion:
https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/pull/4089

The list produces things like (po-man/util-linux-man.pot):

#. type: delimited block _
#: ../lib/terminal-colors.d.5.adoc:115
msgid ""                
"`` *\\a* Bell (ASCII 7)`` `` *\\b* Backspace (ASCII 8)`` `` *\\e* Escape "
"(ASCII 27)`` `` *\\f* Form feed (ASCII 12)`` `` *\\n* Newline (ASCII 10)`` "
"`` *\\r* Carriage Return (ASCII 13)`` `` *\\t* Tab (ASCII 9)`` `` *\\v* "
"Vertical Tab (ASCII 11)`` `` *\\?*{nbsp}{nbsp}{nbsp}Delete (ASCII 127)`` `` "
"*\\_* Space`` `` *\\\\* Backslash (\\)`` `` *\\^* Caret (^)`` `` *\\\\#* "
"Hash mark (#)``"       
msgstr ""             


The table is more readable:

#. type: Table
#: ../lib/terminal-colors.d.5.adoc:131
#, no-wrap
msgid ""
"|0\n"
"|to restore default color\n"
"\n"
"|1\n"
"|for brighter colors\n"
"\n"
"|4\n"
"|for underlined text\n"
"\n"
"|5\n"
"|for flashing text\n"
"\n"
"|30\n"
"|for black foreground\n"
"\n"
"|31\n"
"|for red foreground\n"
"\n"
"|32\n"
"|for green foreground\n"
"\n"
"|33\n"
"|for yellow (or brown) foreground\n"
"\n"
"|34\n"
"|for blue foreground\n"
"\n"
"|35\n"
"|for purple foreground\n"
"\n"
"|36\n"
"|for cyan foreground\n"
"\n"
"|37\n"
"|for white (or gray) foreground\n"
"\n"
"|40\n"
"|for black background\n"
"\n"
"|41\n"
"|for red background\n"
"\n"
"|42\n"
"|for green background\n"
"\n"
"|43\n"
"|for yellow (or brown) background\n"
"\n"
"|44\n"
"|for blue background\n"
"\n"
"|45\n"
"|for purple background\n"
"\n"
"|46\n"
"|for cyan background\n"
"\n"
"|47\n"
"|for white (or gray) background\n"
msgstr ""

> A year ago, commit b3c3d865eb reduced the bulky tables back to simple
> lists.  Can we please keep these simple lists?

The list seems unfriendly to translators in some cases.

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <[email protected]>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com