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

Jonathan Corbet
2026-04-10T12:50:04Z

Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org> writes:

> 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:

I've mentioned this before but done nothing about it ... I really wonder
about the value of bringing in the MAINTAINERS file in the first place.
Do we think that anybody is reading it in the rendered docs?

jon