Messages in this thread Patch in this message | | | Date | Fri, 10 Apr 1998 20:18:12 +0100 (BST) | From | Riley Williams <> | Subject | Linux configuration scripts patches |
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Hi there.
*********************************************************** ** Message resent due to some sort of screwup in pine !! ** ** If you got the original, please accept my apologies ** ***********************************************************
Regarding the various Linux configuration scripts, one problem that I've noticed is that several of the help texts appear difficult to read simply because they are displayed as one large lump of text rather than being split into separate paragraphs.
On inspection, I noted that a blank line is used to separate help text blocks in the configuration help file, so obviously one couldn't simply add extra blank lines where required. However, the same problem occurred in a different context in my experience as a licenced radio amateur, and the solution adopted there was to include a line with a single space on it where a blank line was required.
I tried this out with the help texts, and found that it didn't work since the scripts were stripping out leading spaces before determining where the end of the help text was. However, it gave me an idea for an alternative method, which is to use a single character that would not normally occur on its own on a line in a help file. The obvious candidate for this is the full stop, and that is the character used.
The enclosed patch file makes the necessary trivial changes to the config and menuconfig scripts to implement this facility, and has been made against the script files supplied with kernel 2.0.33 but should be simple to port to other kernels.
Please note that I have not created a patch to perform the same function for the xconfig script for the simple reason that I can't find the said script on my system. I have, however, copied this patch to both of the "make xconfig" authors listed in the "make config" script file, so would hope that one of them can port the relevant changes to their script.
Please note also that the use of a full stop for this purpose in the help text produces a help text which is equally readable without the patches, since the full stop gets displayed in the first column of each line, so from that point of view, this patch is simply cosmetic.
AXEL: If this patch gets accepted, you may like to revise the help texts accordingly to make them much easier to read...
Best wishes from Riley.
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--- scripts/Configure.orig Fri Apr 10 12:46:10 1998 +++ scripts/Configure Fri Apr 10 12:48:51 1998 @@ -49,6 +49,10 @@ # 040697 Larry Augustin (lma@varesearch.com) - integer expr test # fails with GNU expr 1.12. Re-write to work with new and old expr. +# 100498 Riley Williams (rhw@bigfoot.com) - added ability to display +# blank lines in help texts: Any line consisting only of a single dot +# will be displayed blank. + # # Make sure we're really running bash. # @@ -96,7 +100,7 @@ then echo; echo " Sorry, no help available for this option yet.";echo else - (echo; echo "$text"; echo) | ${PAGER:-more} + (echo; echo "$text"; echo) | sed 's/^.$//' | ${PAGER:-more} fi else echo; --- scripts/Menuconfig.orig Fri Apr 10 12:38:49 1998 +++ scripts/Menuconfig Fri Apr 10 12:42:59 1998 @@ -22,6 +22,12 @@ # Please send comments / questions / bug fixes to roadcapw@titus.org # #---------------------------------------------------------------------------- +# +# 10 Apr 1998 - Added ability to display blank lines in help text: Any line +# which only contains a single dot will be displayed blank. +# Author: Riley Williams <rhw@bigfoot.com> +# +#---------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # Make sure we're really running bash. @@ -229,7 +235,7 @@ echo "There is no help available for this kernel option." return 1 else - echo "$text" + echo "$text" | sed 's/^.$//' fi else echo "There is no help available for this kernel option."
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