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You're just quoting the man page which doesn't explicitly say that the a is for all (although it does very strongly suggest it and is the best answer possible)

Pilot6

@terdon I gave a quote of man where you can see why the a.

terdon

@Pilot6 Sure, but how would you answer "What does the f stand for in ls -f" ?

Pilot6

And also it gives information on how to find answers on similar questions ;-)

terdon

7:50 PM

I'm being very pedantic here. I see no reason to doubt that the -a comes from -all, that seems obvious.

Pilot6

@terdon I will not answer about "-f" )))

terdon

It's just that I don't much like that type of question since many, many flags don't really stand for anything.

Seth

@terdon don't be silly. --all is the long form. The shortform is -a. What is it short for? long form of course!

terdon

48 secs ago, by terdon

I'm being very pedantic here. I see no reason to doubt that the -a comes from -all, that seems obvious.

Seth

o....kay. I see no point, but ok.

@terdon I'd ask Stéphane :P

(assuming it's not obvious)

Jacob Vlijm

7:53 PM

"What does the - stand for in -rw-rw-r--?" pfff

terdon

@Seth There isn't much of one. Just that while in this particular case the abbreviation is obvious, in many cases it isn't and I've never seen it explicitly stated in the man page. I was just wondering whether that type of thing would even be on topic.

Pilot6

@JacobVlijm This is quite easy to answer. Fell free to ask )))

Jacob Vlijm

@Pilot6 yeah, but what is it an abreviation of? :)

Pilot6

@terdon It is 200% on topic ))))

Seth

@terdon Don't see why not? Similar questions have been asked on U&L. If the answer isn't obvious usually someone with a historical background can give a good answer or at least well educated guess.

Pilot6

7:54 PM

@JacobVlijm it is not an abbreviation ;-)

Jacob Vlijm

Obviously

Seth

@JacobVlijm just means it is not a directory, and so a file.

well

terdon

@Seth Yeah, but even on U&L we've had issues with that sort of thing since sometimes the only person who can answer is the developer. Consider the case of ls -f for example.

Jacob Vlijm

@Seth I know of course, but it is a silly question

Seth

it actually means the file/directory doesn't have the attribute at that place :P

@JacobVlijm how many of those do we need >.>

terdon

7:55 PM

My feeling is that such Qs are on topic if an answer can be known by someone other than the developer. As was the case in the one @Pilot6 answered.

Pilot6

@Seth That's what I thought )))

Seth

@terdon just because there's no answer doesn't mean it is now magically off-topic..

Pilot6

@terdon If the developer told me that, can I answer if I know ;-)

terdon

@Seth It's hard to explain without an example. But yes, sometimes when there's no answer, it's because the question is basically opinion based. Things like "Why is commandX implemented in this particular way when this other, equally good and efficient way is possible?"

In such cases, it is very hard if not impossible to know and the questions often end up closed as opinion based.

Seth

well I say cross that bridge when we come to it. As you said, need an example ;)

terdon

7:57 PM

If, however, someone happens to know for whatever reason (maybe they were part of the dev team or whatever) then they answer and it sort of magically isn't so opinion based anymore.

@Seth Fair enough.

Seth

His books were kinda intimidating; rappelling down through his skylight seemed like the best option.

terdon

8:24 PM

Oh man. . . that ls -a question is in the HNQ list now.

Pilot6

What is HNQ?

Seth

hot network questions

Pilot6

Hot New Quesions?

Heh

Good guess

Jacob Vlijm

Hairy Noob Question

Pilot6

@JacobVlijm That's closer

Jacob Vlijm

8:26 PM

But huhh?

terdon

@Pilot6 Horrible Nauseating Questions

Pilot6

Can we do something with too obvious questions, seriously?

I am intimidated to answer them in most cases ;-)

Jacob Vlijm

You mean when it is a question too obviously?

Pilot6

Like this one.

terdon

@Pilot6 Not much. Just answer them and sit back and enjoy all the tons of rep you get for something trivial while the really good stuff, the ones where you put in time and effort to get just right languish in obscurity.

2

Pilot6

8:29 PM

Or maybe write a Q & A like "see man" and mark all as dupes

Jacob Vlijm

@Pilot6 you are getting rich :)

Pilot6

Q like how do I know what "foo -bla" does and stands for. A see "man foo"

Jacob Vlijm

We can sctipt that.

Pilot6

I saw tons of these. And they really bring tons of rep

Jacob Vlijm

Script (freakin' phone)

Pilot6

8:35 PM

@terdon That's really funny. I write some driver, or adapt it for a new kernel and post and answer. The answer gets 1-2 upvotes and never is accepted ))). Then I see my solution all over the internet )))) But still no votes.

WinEunuuchs2Unix

@Pilot6 answer = RTFM then flag everything as dupe :p

@Pilot6 Give an example?

Pilot6

@WinEunuuchs2Unix Example of what?

terdon

@Pilot6 Yep, typical. The answers I'm most proud of rarely have even 10 upvotes while stupid little nonsense that takes 5 minutes gets dozens or even >100.

WinEunuuchs2Unix

@Pilot6 3example of under voted answer. We have certain powers here :)

Pilot6

@WinEunuuchs2Unix There are lots of these. I do not want to get votes this way.

WinEunuuchs2Unix

8:39 PM

@Pilot6 I understand.

Seth

@WinEunuuchs2Unix if you want to give someone some reputation, give them a bounty.

WinEunuuchs2Unix

I have up voted you lots but the problem with complicated answersnus I have to test them to upvote and that's not possible sometimes.

Jacob Vlijm

@Pilot6 Pilot, I love you.

Pilot6

I can give one example that is obsolete and is not worth voting now. The Focaltech driver. I took part in the development and maintained a compatible kernel for Ubuntu for a year. When it became feasible to make a dkms (in 3.19+) I made a PPA with it that has many thousands of installs according to stats. I hardly got 10 upvotes

I removed the PPA now, because people keep installng the driver for wrong touchpads.

and complaining that it does not work. Now the driver is in mainline kernels

since 4.2

terdon

Nice!

The trouble with that sort of answer of course, is that it is very hard to know if it's correct or not. Unless I happen to have the same issue and compatible hardware, I would have no way of knowing if your answer is correct or not.

WinEunuuchs2Unix

8:42 PM

?maintaining a driver for the world seems daunting.

terdon

And that is also often the case for the more complex scripts. Unless you're proficient enough in the scripting language to read and understand it, if it's too complex to test, it's hard to know how to vote.

Pilot6

@terdon That's true. I do not upvote solutions I do not understand either ;-)

terdon

Which is why I've been voting on @JacobVlijm's answers more often since learning some python ;)

Pilot6

@WinEunuuchs2Unix I maintain lots of things for the world )))

Jacob Vlijm

@terdon Haha, thanks :)

Pilot6

8:43 PM

Like PPA with realtek drivers. I never had a single realtek device myself

WinEunuuchs2Unix