[Pkg-gmagick-im-team] man pages: trailing whitespace
Bjarni Ingi Gislason
bjarniig at simnet.is
Sun Jun 14 02:51:40 BST 2026
Package: imagemagick-7.q16
Version: 8:7.1.2.24+dfsg1-1
Severity: minor
Additional remarks.
Mails from me to "submit at bugs.debian.org" are no longer acknowledged. A
Debian maintainer told me, that he would contact the mail administrator
about me not wanting to send bugs upstream.
-.-
Dear Maintainer,
>From "/usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt.gz":
Don't file bugs upstream
If you file a bug in Debian, don't send a copy to the upstream software
maintainers yourself, as it is possible that the bug exists only in
Debian. If necessary, the maintainer of the package will forward the
bug upstream.
-.-
For forwarding bug reports to upstream see:
https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#forward
-.-
"Handling bug reports" in
http://people.debian.org/~enrico/dcg/ch03s02.html
-.-
I do not send reports upstream if I have to get an account there.
The Debian maintainers have one already.
-.-
* What led up to the situation?
Checking for defects with a new version
test-[g|n]roff -mandoc -t -K utf8 -rF0 -rHY=0 -rCHECKSTYLE=0 -ww -z < "man page"
[Use
grep -n -e ' $' -e '\\~$' -e ' \\f.$' -e ' \\"' <file>
to find (most) trailing spaces.]
["test-groff" is a script in the repository for "groff"; is not shipped]
(local copy and "troff" slightly changed by me).
[The fate of "test-nroff" was decided in groff bug #55941.]
* What was the outcome of this action?
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.HSahS8:91: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.HSahS8:95: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
/usr/share/man/man1/animate-im7.q16.1.gz
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.EphVJy:83: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
/usr/share/man/man1/composite-im7.q16.1.gz
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.89Fl99:145: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.89Fl99:215: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
/usr/share/man/man1/convert-im7.q16.1.gz
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.8r9j9W:127: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
/usr/share/man/man1/display-im7.q16.1.gz
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.NLogv2:63: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
/usr/share/man/man1/identify-im7.q16.1.gz
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.1uT0v8:54: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.1uT0v8:78: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
/usr/share/man/man1/import-im7.q16.1.gz
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.s0CtMs:130: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.s0CtMs:143: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
troff:/tmp/gz.roff.s0CtMs:212: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]
/usr/share/man/man1/mogrify-im7.q16.1.gz
* What outcome did you expect instead?
No output (no warnings).
-.-
General remarks and further material, if a diff-file exist, are in the
attachments.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 7.0.10+deb14-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=is_IS.iso88591, LC_CTYPE=is_IS.iso88591 (charmap=ISO-8859-1), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)
Versions of packages imagemagick-7.q16 depends on:
ii hicolor-icon-theme 0.18-2
ii libc6 2.42-16
ii libmagickcore-7.q16-10 8:7.1.2.24+dfsg1-1
ii libmagickwand-7.q16-10 8:7.1.2.24+dfsg1-1
Versions of packages imagemagick-7.q16 recommends:
ii ghostscript 10.07.1~dfsg-1
pn libmagickcore-7.q16-10-extra <none>
ii netpbm 2:11.13.03+ds-2
Versions of packages imagemagick-7.q16 suggests:
pn autotrace <none>
pn cups-bsd | lpr | lprng <none>
ii curl 8.20.0-5
pn enscript <none>
pn ffmpeg <none>
pn gimp <none>
ii gnuplot 6.0.3+dfsg1-1
ii gnuplot-qt [gnuplot] 6.0.3+dfsg1-1
pn grads <none>
pn graphviz <none>
ii groff-base 1.24.1-1
pn hp2xx <none>
pn html2ps <none>
ii imagemagick-7-doc 8:7.1.2.24+dfsg1-1
pn libraw-bin <none>
pn libwmf-bin <none>
pn mplayer <none>
pn povray <none>
pn radiance <none>
pn sane-utils <none>
ii texlive-binaries [texlive-base-bin] 2026.20260303.78225+ds-4
pn transfig <none>
ii xdg-utils 1.2.1-2
-- no debconf information
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Check the output from "lintian" in the Debian distribution.
Any program (person), that produces man pages, should check the output
for defects by using (both groff and nroff)
[gn]roff -mandoc -t -ww -b -z -K utf8 <man page>
To find most trailing spaces use
grep -n -e ' $' -e ' \\f.$' -e ' \\"' <man page>
The same goes for man pages that are used as an input.
-.-
For a style guide use
mandoc -T lint
-.-
For general input conventions consult the man page "nroff(7)" (item
"Input conventions") or the Texinfo manual about the same item.
-.-
Any "autogenerator" should check its products with the above mentioned
'groff', 'mandoc', and additionally with 'nroff ...'.
It should also check its input files for too long (> 80) lines.
This is just a simple quality control measure.
The "autogenerator" may have to be corrected to get a better man page,
the source file may, and any additional file may.
-.-
Common defects:
Not removing trailing spaces (in in- and output).
The reason for these trailing spaces should be found and eliminated.
"git" has a "tool" to point out whitespace,
see for example "git-apply(1)" and git-config(1)")
-.-
Not beginning each input sentence on a new line.
Line length and patch size should thus be reduced when that has been fixed.
The script "reportbug" uses 'quoted-printable' encoding when a line is
longer than 1024 characters in an 'ascii' file.
See man-pages(7), item "semantic newline".
-.-
The difference between the formatted output of the original
and patched file can be seen with:
nroff -mandoc <file1> > <out1>
nroff -mandoc <file2> > <out2>
diff -d -u <out1> <out2>
and for groff, using
\"printf '%s\n%s\n' '.kern 0' '.ss 12 0' | groff -mandoc -Z - \"
instead of 'nroff -mandoc'
Add the option '-t', if the file contains a table.
Read the output from 'diff -d -u ...' with 'less -R' or similar.
-.-.
If 'man' (man-db) is used to check the manual for warnings,
the following must be set:
The option "-warnings=w"
The environmental variable:
export MAN_KEEP_STDERR=yes (or any non-empty value)
or
(produce only warnings):
export MANROFFOPT="-ww -b -z"
export MAN_KEEP_STDERR=yes (or any non-empty value)
-.-
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