Re: Errors in man pages, here: exec(3): Wording

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>]

On 4/19/20 8:47 AM, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> Dear manpages maintainers.
> the manpage-l10n project maintains a large number of translations of
> man pages both from a large variety of sources (including manpages) as
> well for a large variety of target languages.
> 
> During their work translators notice different possible issues in the
> original (english) man pages. Sometiems this is a straightforward
> typo, sometimes a hard to read sentence, sometimes this is a convention
> not held up and sometimes we simply do not understand the original.
> 
> We use several distributions as sources and update regularly (at
> least every 2 month). This means we are fairly recent (some
> distributions like archlinux also update frequently) but might miss
> the latest upstream version once a while, so the error might be
> already fixed. We apologize and ask you to close the issue immediately
> if this should be the case, but given the huge volume of projects and
> the very limited number of volunteers we are not able to double check
> each and every issue.
> 
> Secondly we translators see the manpages in the neutral po format,
> i.e. converted and harmonized, but not the original source (be it man,
> groff, xml or other). So we cannot provide a true patch (where
> possible), but only an approximation which you need to translate into
> your source format.
> 
> Finally the issues I'm reporting have accumulated over time and are
> not always discovered by me, so sometimes my description of the
> problem my be a bit limited - do not hesitate to ask so we can clarify
> them.
> 
> I'm now reporting the errors for your project. As requested, each
> issue is sent in an unique mail for easier tracking on your side. If
> future reports should use another channel, please let me know.
> 
> **
> 
> The translator in charge wondered why the term "frontend" is used here 
> and not the term "wrapper", because this function calls another 
> function. He also cites the (German version of)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_end_and_back_end
> 
> "The B<exec>()  family of functions replaces the current process image with a "
> "new process image.  The functions described in this manual page are front-"
> "ends for B<execve>(2).  (See the manual page for B<execve>(2)  for further "
> "details about the replacement of the current process image.)"

The wording has been this way for decades (the page is taken from BSD),
and I think the meaning is clear.

That said, it would not be my first choice of wording. I've changed it to
"are layered on top of"

Thanks,

Michael



-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/