1692: Man Page

2016-06-10T06:52:18Z

Blauer elephant: /* Explanation */ added jikes

{{comic
| number = 1692
| date = June 10, 2016
| title = Man Page
| image = man_page.png
| titletext = For even more info, see blarbl(2)(3) and birb(3ahhaha I'm kidding, just Google it like a normal person.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Initial draft/outline. As one of those comics, needs a section on each part. Needs an explanation of a man page for those unaware. Also needs fact-checking.}}
This comic shows a Unix man page for a fictional program called "blerp". It details the command line options for this program, many of which are strange, annoying, or even impossible. These options are mostly in alphabetical order.

Unix manpages are meant to provide a brief reference on the usage of a command, not verbose and well-written explanations as you may find in manuals which is another common type of documentation. This fictional manpage seems to exaggerate its crypticness, thus making fun of a common trait that many manpages have.

[[wikipedia:Command-line_interface#Command-line_option|Command-line options]], also known as flags, are typed following a program name to change how the program runs. The following is an example usage.

<code>blerp -a -d -t -p "AVIGNON"</code>

This would run blerp in attack mode, outputting to DEBUG.EXE, with tumble dry, and with POPE set to AVIGNON. In most cases, any number of flags can be used in any order, and applicable flags can be followed by arguments (such as "AVIGNON" in this example).

{| class="wikitable"
!Flag!!Description!!Explanation
|-
| -a||ATTACK MODE||Like a robot or something similar. Strange for a command line program.
|-
| -b||SUPPRESS BEES||Nonsensical option.
|-
| -—||FLAGS USE EM DASHES||Hard to tell the difference between en and em dashes. Command line options (flags) typically use en dashes (short dashes approximately the same width as the letter n). Em dashes can't easily be typed into a command line interface, so switching flags from en to em dashes is excessively difficult and nonsensical.
Also implies a paradox where if flags were to use em dashes, this flag itself would be invalid.
|-
| -c||COUNT NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS||Most likely not useful.
|-
| -d||PIPES OUTPUT TO DEBUG.EXE||DEBUG.EXE is the old 16-bit debugger that came with MS-DOS. On a Unix system it is much more likely that one would use the GNU debugger (GDB). Also I beleive any debugger would object to having random program output piped to it, this is not how debuggers are meant to be used.
|-
| -D||DEPRECATED||Many programs contain legacy options to avoid breaking scripts that use them. While the option should still work, the documentation is changed to say "deprecated" to discourage further use. Eventually such options gets removed.
|-
| -e||EXECUTE SOMETHING||Vague.
|-
| -f||FUN MODE||Strange and slightly ominous.
|-
| -g||USE GOOGLE||As an actual program flag, a bit hackjob-ish, but most likely relating to googling how this program works.
|-
| -h||CHECK WHETHER INPUT HALTS||Completely impossible, by the Halting Theorem.
|-
| -i||IGNORE CASE (LOWER)||Usually, ignoring case means that a program will run without differentiating between upper- and lowercase. This flag suggests that blerp will run ignoring all the lowercase characters completely, or ignoring all the uppercase characters with -I.
|-
| -I||IGNORE CASE (UPPER)||
|-
| -jk||KIDDING||A common acronym, not a program flag.
|-
| -n||BEHAVIOR NOT DEFINED||Possibly mathematically ominous? Otherwise useless.
|-
| -o||OVERWRITE||Standard flag.
|-
| -O||OPPOSITE DAY||Strange flag.
|-
| -p||SET TRUE POPE; ACCEPTS "ROME" OR "AVIGNON"||This refers to a [https://en.wikipedia.org/Western_Schism historical schism in the Catholic Church.] In the 14th century, the Pope briefly ruled from Avingon, France, instead of Rome. After the Papacy was returned to Rome in 1377, the Church split (the so-called Western Schism) as not everyone accepted the move and the Pople who ordered it. This flag apparently allows the user to select a preferred Pope. There is actually a possible feature request here, as \"PISA\", a third Pope, should also be an option.
|-
| -q||QUIET MODE; OUTPUT IS PRINTED TO STDOUT INSTEAD OF BEING SPOKEN ALOUD||In most cases, a program will output basic information to the console, and running it in quiet mode will make it run without outputting anything. Blerp, on the other hand, outputs information through audio, and the quiet flag causes it to run like a normal program.
|-
| -r||RANDOMIZE ARGUMENTS||Pointless and possibly damaging.
|-
| -R||RUN RECURSIVELY ON <nowiki>http://*</nowiki>||The star (*) symbol is often used as a wildcard to match any string of characters. "<nowiki>http://*</nowiki>" suggests that blerp will be run on every webpage on the internet.
|-
| -s||FOLLOW SYMBOLIC LINKS SYMBOLICALLY||[Needs explanation of symbolic links]
|-
| -S||STEALTH MODE||Similar to -a.
|-
| -t||TUMBLE DRY||Perhaps useful for a program that runs on a clothes dryer. Refers to [https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5254504/il_570xN.184726893.jpg directions like these].
|-
| -u||UTF-8 MODE; OTHERWISE DEFAULTS TO ANSEL||[Explanation of ANSEL necessary.] UTF-8 is rather standard. Similar in this regard to -q.
|-
| -U||UPDATE (DEFAULT: FACEBOOK)||Update usually refers to replacing an old software with a newer version. The default here suggests posting a status update to Facebook.
|-
| -v||VERBOSE; ALIAS TO find / -exec cat {}||Almost standard flag, in ordinary programs the opposite of -q. This command prints the contents of all files in the filesystem tree. However, it will never complete, as certain device files never end (/dev/urandom contains random bytes). Note that the "find" command is missing <code>\;</code> and will not run, instead complaining <code>find: missing argument to `-exec'</code> .
|-
| -V||SET VERSION NUMBER||Many programs will have a flag to view the version number. This flag changes the version number instead.
|-
| -y||YIKES||Jikes is a Java bytecode compiler originally developed by IBM. Will try to use anothere compiler and likely fail to find one.
|}

The bug report site, http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47744-Hemiptera, is a currently active webpage and inaturalist.org is a site working to extend biological research, and http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47744-Hemiptera does work and points to the same page as http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/Hemiptera. [[wikipedia:Hemiptera|Hemiptera]] is the order classifying True Bugs. [The 47744-Hemiptera link seems to point to the "Stink Bugs Family" in the Recent Observations section]

blorp(501)(c)(3) is not a valid chapter reference for a manpage, it is however a slightly covert reference to the [https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-section-501-c-3-organizations 501(c)(3)] section of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States, which describes the requirements for an organization to be tax-exempt.

Copyright "or best offer" is humourous, needs explanation of individual parts.

The "copyright" line references several variously open-source content licenses; GPL 2, GPL 3, creative commons, and BSD licenses are mentioned. "LIKE GECKO" is a reference to a web browser user-agent string; modern user-agent strings include a lot of text designed to let the browser pretend to be several different browsers/renderers, and "(like Gecko)" is the standard text for a browser that wants to be treated as if it were Gecko while admitting, if you look closely, that it isn't really Gecko. This copyright line, which includes a lot of mashed-together text that might appear to match any of several different licenses, resembles a user-agent string.

==Transcript==
:[A terminal screen; the background is black and the text is white.]
:{| class="wikitable"
|style="background-color:black;"|<font color="white">
;NAME
:blerp

;SYNOPSIS
:blerp {[ OPTION | ARGS ]...[ ARGS ... -f [FLAGS] ...}
:blerp {... DIRECTORY ... URL | BLERP} OPTIONS ] -{}

;DESCRIPTION
:blerp FILTERS LOCAL OR REMOTE FILES OR RESOURCES USING PATTERNS DEFINED BY ARGUMENTS AND ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES. THIS BEHAVIOR CAN BE ALTERED BY VARIOUS FLAGS.

;OPTIONS
:{|
! scope="row" | -a
| ATTACK MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -b
| SUPPRESS BEES
|-
! scope="row" | -—
| FLAGS USE EM DASHES
|-
! scope="row" | -c
| COUNT NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS
|-
! scope="row" | -d
| PIPES OUTPUT TO DEBUG.EXE
|-
! scope="row" | -D
| DEPRECATED
|-
! scope="row" | -e
| EXECUTE SOMETHING
|-
! scope="row" | -f
| FUN MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -g
| USE GOOGLE
|-
! scope="row" | -h
| CHECK WHETHER INPUT HALTS
|-
! scope="row" | -i
| IGNORE CASE (LOWER)
|-
! scope="row" | -I
| IGNORE CASE (UPPER)
|-
! scope="row" | -jk
| KIDDING
|-
! scope="row" | -n
| BEHAVIOR NOT DEFINED
|-
! scope="row" | -o
| OVERWRITE
|-
! scope="row" | -O
| OPPOSITE DAY
|-
! scope="row" | -p
| SET TRUE POPE; ACCEPTS "ROME" OR "AVIGNON"
|-
! scope="row" | -q
| QUIET MODE; OUTPUT IS PRINTED TO STDOUT INSTEAD OF BEING SPOKEN ALOUD
|-
! scope="row" | -r
| RANDOMIZE ARGUMENTS
|-
! scope="row" | -R
| RUN RECURSIVELY ON <nowiki>http://*</nowiki>
|-
! scope="row" | -s
| FOLLOW SYMBOLIC LINKS SYMBOLICALLY
|-
! scope="row" | -S
| STEALTH MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -t
| TUMBLE DRY
|-
! scope="row" | -u
| UTF-8 MODE; OTHERWISE DEFAULTS TO ANSEL
|-
! scope="row" | -U
| UPDATE (DEFAULT: FACEBOOK)
|-
! scope="row" | -v
| VERBOSE; ALIAS TO find / -exec cat {}
|-
! scope="row" | -V
| SET VERSION NUMBER
|-
! scope="row" | -y
| YIKES
|}

;SEE ALSO
:blerp(1), blerp(3), blirb(8), blarb(51) blorp(501)(c)(3)

;BUG REPORTS
:<nowiki>http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47744-Hemiptera</nowiki>

;COPYRIGHT
:GPL(2)(3+) CC-BY/5.0 RV 41.0 LIKE GECKO/BSD 4(2) OR BEST OFFER
</font>
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Programming]]

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1692: Man Page