man page for expect calls glob "regular expression"

Bug #227542 reported by Ian! D. Allen
10
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
expect (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: expect

Ubuntu 7.10
expect 5.43.0-13.1

Under the "expect" section, "man expect" incorrectly says:

    (Such patterns are also similar to C-shell regular
    expressions usually referred to as "glob" patterns).

The C-shell man page doesn't call glob patterns "regular expressions",
it calls them "filename substitution patterns". It is wrong to use the
term "regular expressions" here. Also, Tcl/expect have *real* regular
expressions with a different syntax. Don't confuse the users.

If you really want to reference the C-shell, the man page should say:

    (Such patterns are also similar to C-shell filename substitution
    patterns, usually referred to as "glob" patterns.)

Revision history for this message
Ian! D. Allen (idallen) wrote :

Still an error in Ubuntu 9.10 man page.

Revision history for this message
Bryan Fullerton (fehwalker) wrote :

This phrasing is inherited from the original source code for expect.

http://expect.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/expect/expect/expect.man?revision=5.38&view=markup

I'm not clear that it's appropriate to fix this at the Ubuntu level only.

Revision history for this message
Ian! D. Allen (idallen) wrote :

Still an error in Ubuntu 12.04 man page.

Yes, it's an upstream issue that Ubuntu should send upstream.

Changed in expect (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
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