Re: printf-like output for gnunet-search

[Alessio Vanni]

madmurphy <madmurphy333@gmail.com> writes:

> I have pushed the new gnunet-search with printf-like capabilities to
> the git repository. I have also updated the man page. Feel free to
> play with it and write your feedbacks :)

I think the help text when using `--help' is too long.
That's not really the place to write the _full_ explanation of the
option; that's the man page's job.

Even the tool's description should be reverted to the simpler one-liner
that was used previously.

The main reason is that it's so long to be basically unreadable.

As an example, the help string for `--printf', which other than being
about four sentences long also contains a list of items, should
probably be reworded like so:

"Write search results according to FORMAT.
See the documentation for the available placeholders."

Then you can add a dedicated section in the man page titled "Formatting
the output" or something like that.

`--dir-printf' should use the same string, instead of referencing some
other option.  It is generally a good idea to treat each help message as
an independent entity — at least personally speaking, oftentimes I find
myself scanning the left column for a specific optiong and only after I
find it I read the help text, so having to navigate back and forth
because the option I need just says "alias for foo" ends up being rather
annoying in the long run.

I haven't checked the actual man pages yet, so I can't comment on that.

Thanks,
A.V.