Re: [PATCH] docs: escape ** glob pattern in MAINTAINERS descriptions

Randy Dunlap
2026-04-10T00:08:49Z

Hi,

On 4/9/26 3:31 PM, Matteo Croce wrote:
> From: Matteo Croce <teknoraver@meta.com>
>
> Escape '**' in the MAINTAINERS descriptions section to prevent
> reStructuredText from interpreting it as bold/strong inline markup,
> which causes a warning when running 'make htmldocs'.
>
> Fixes: 420849332f9f ("get_maintainer: add ** glob pattern support")
> Signed-off-by: Matteo Croce <teknoraver@meta.com>
> ---
> Documentation/sphinx/maintainers_include.py | 3 ++-
> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/sphinx/maintainers_include.py b/Documentation/sphinx/maintainers_include.py
> index 519ad18685b2..54f34f47c9ee 100755
> --- a/Documentation/sphinx/maintainers_include.py
> +++ b/Documentation/sphinx/maintainers_include.py
> @@ -89,7 +89,8 @@ class MaintainersInclude(Include):
> output = None
> if descriptions:
> # Escape the escapes in preformatted text.
> - output = "| %s" % (line.replace("\\", "\\\\"))
> + output = "| %s" % (line.replace("\\", "\\\\")
> + .replace("**", "\\**"))
> # Look for and record field letter to field name mappings:
> # R: Designated *reviewer*: FullName <address@domain>
> m = re.search(r"\s(\S):\s", line)

It's nice to eliminate one warning from 'make htmldocs', so this is good
in that regard. However, there are still multiple problems (not Warnings)
with '*' characters in the MAINTAINERS file:

1) F: */net/* all files in "any top level directory"/net

In the html output, it shows "/net/" italicized (that's what one * does).

2) F: fs/**/*foo*.c all *foo*.c files in any subdirectory of fs

In the html output, it shows

F: fs/**/foo.c all foo.c files in any subdirectory of fs

with both occurrences of "foo.c" italicized (dropping the '*' characters).

These 2 examples are actively wrong.

I didn't look at any other possible issues.

--
~Randy