Issues in man pages of pacman
Dear pacman maintainer, the manpage-l10n project[1] maintains a large number of translations of man pages both from a large variety of sources (including pacman) as well for a large variety of target languages. During their work translators notice different possible issues in the original (english) man pages. Sometimes this is a straightforward typo, sometimes a hard to read sentence, sometimes this is a convention not held up and sometimes we simply do not understand the original. We use several distributions as sources and update regularly (at least every 2 month). This means we are fairly recent (some distributions like archlinux also update frequently) but might miss your latest upstream version once in a while, so the error might be already fixed. We apologize and ask you to close the issue immediately if this should be the case, but given the huge volume of projects and the very limited number of volunteers we are not able to double check each and every issue. Secondly we translators see the manpages in the neutral po format, i.e. converted and harmonized, but not the original source (be it man, groff, xml or other). So we cannot provide a true patch (where possible), but only an approximation which you need to convert into your source format. Finally the issues I'm reporting have accumulated over time and are not always discovered by me, so sometimes my description of the problem my be a bit limited - do not hesitate to ask so we can clarify them. I'm now reporting the issues for your project. If future reports should use another channel, please let me know. [1] https://manpages-l10n-team.pages.debian.net/manpages-l10n/ Man page: libalpm.3 Issue: Fullstop ok here? (All the others don't have one) "Functions dealing with libalpm's dependency and conflict information\\&." "Functions to query and manipulate the database of libalpm\\&." -- Man page: libalpm.3 Issue: pacman → pacman(8) "libalpm is a package management library, primarily used by pacman\\&. For " "ease of access, the libalpm manual has been split up into several " "sections\\&." -- Man page: makepkg.8 Issue 1: makepkg → B<makepkg> Issue 2: possibly $srcdir → I<$srcdir>? "Clean build artifacts from previous runs of makepkg in the current directory " "by removing $srcdir before building the package\\&." -- Man page: makepkg.8 Issue 1: makepkg → B<makepkg> Issue 2: bash → B<bash>(1) "Setting to 0 disables PKGBUILD linting within makepkg\\&. Useful on systems " "with slow bash subshell operations, or on PKGBUILDs with extreme amounts of " "package splitting\\&." -- Man page: makepkg.conf.5 Issue: ld(1) → B<ld>(1) "Flags used for the linker\\&. Several options may be specified with common " "usage resembling \\(lq-Wl,--hash-style=gnu\\(rq\\&. Read ld(1) for more " "details on available linker flags\\&." -- Man page: makepkg.conf.5 Issue: gcc(1) → B<gcc>(1) "Additional compiler flags appended to CFLAGS for use in debugging\\&. " "Usually this would include: \\(lq-g\\(rq\\&. Read gcc(1) for more details on " "the wide variety of compiler flags available\\&." -- Man page: makepkg-template.1 Issue: PKGBUILD → I<PKGBUILD> "I<makepkg-template> is a script to ease the work of maintaining multiple " "similar PKGBUILDs\\&. It allows you to move most of the code from the " "PKGBUILD into a template file and uses markers to allow in-place updating of " "existing PKGBUILDs if the template has been changed\\&." "Template files can contain any code allowed in a PKGBUILD\\&. You can think " "of them like external files included with \"\\&.\" or \"source\", but they " "will be inlined into the PKGBUILD by I<makepkg-template> so you do not " "depend on the template file when building the package\\&." "Template files should be stored in one directory and filenames should be " "\"$template_name-$version\\&.template\" with a symlink " "\"$template_name\\&.template\" pointing to the most recent template\\&. If " "the version is not set in the marker, I<makepkg-template> will automatically " "use the target of \"$template_name\\&.template\", otherwise the specified " "version will be used\\&. This allows for easier verification of untrusted " "PKGBUILDs if the template is trusted\\&. You verify the non-template code " "and then use a command similar to this:" "Template files may also contain markers leading to nested templates in the " "resulting PKGBUILD\\&. If you use markers in a template, please set the " "version you used/tested with in the start/input marker so other people can " "properly recreate from templates\\&." -- Man page: pacman.8 Issue: NULL character → NUL? "Print each match in a machine readable output format\\&. The format is " "I<repository\\e0pkgname\\e0pkgver\\e0path\\en> with I<\\e0> being the NULL " "character and I<\\en> a linefeed\\&." -- Man page: pacman.conf.5 Issue: Where did "%o" come from? The XferCommand command usage does not have an %o "If set, an external program will be used to download all remote files\\&. " "All instances of %u will be replaced with the download URL\\&. If present, " "instances of %o will be replaced with the local filename, plus a \\" "(lq\\&.part\\(rq extension, which allows programs like wget to do file " "resumes properly\\&." -- Man page: pacman.conf.5 Issue: The part "will not be removed" reads strang - is there something missing? Who is not removed? The URL? The (non-)cahce servers? And what is the relation to database fields? "A full URL to a location where the packages, and signatures (if available) " "for this repository can be found\\&. Cache servers will be tried before any " "non-cache servers, will not be removed from the server pool for 404 download " "errors, and will not be used for database files\\&." -- Man page: pacman.conf.5 Issue: I<pacman-db-upgrade> → B<pacman-db-upgrade> "I<pacman-db-upgrade> [options]" "I<pacman-db-upgrade> is a script that upgrades the local database used by " "B<pacman>(8) to a newer format\\&." -- Man page: pacman.conf.5 Issue: This man page part is broken, check formatting? (Version from August 2022 looks better) (Both formatting and missing B<>/I<>) "*-h, \\e--help*::\n" "Show the built-in help message and exit\\&.\n" "*-V, \\e--version*::\n" "Show version information and exit\\&.\n" "*-d, \\e--dbpath* E<lt>pathE<gt>::\n" "Set an alternate database location\\&.\n" "*-r, \\e--root* E<lt>pathE<gt>::\n" "Set an alternate installation root\\&.\n" "*\\e--config* E<lt>pathE<gt>::\n" "Set an alternate configuration file\\&.\n" "*\\e--nocolor*::\n" "Remove color from output\\&.\n" -- Man page: PKGBUILD.5 Issue: PKGBUILD\\&.proto → I<PKGBUILD\\&.proto> "An example PKGBUILD, useful for reference, is located in I</usr/share/" "pacman> along with other example files such as an install script\\&. You can " "copy the provided PKGBUILD\\&.proto file to a new package build directory " "and make customizations to suit your needs\\&." -- Man page: repo-add.8 Issue: Missing full stop "Include package PGP signatures in the repository database (if available)" -- Man page: testpkg.8 Issue: I<testpkg> → B<testpkg> "I<testpkg> E<lt>package fileE<gt>" "I<testpkg> is a script used to make sure that a pacman package is valid\\&." -- Dr. Helge Kreutzmann debian@helgefjell.de Dipl.-Phys. http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php 64bit GNU powered gpg signed mail preferred Help keep free software "libre": http://www.ffii.de/
On 16/11/2025 5:51 pm, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
I'm now reporting the issues for your project. If future reports should use another channel, please let me know.
Thanks. I have logged these issues in our gitlab instances so that do not get lost. https://gitlab.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman/-/issues/287
Hello Allan, Am Sun, Nov 16, 2025 at 06:15:10PM +1000 schrieb Allan McRae:
On 16/11/2025 5:51 pm, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
I'm now reporting the issues for your project. If future reports should use another channel, please let me know.
Thanks. I have logged these issues in our gitlab instances so that do not get lost. https://gitlab.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman/-/issues/287
Thanks for your speedy reply. I'll use the gitlab for future reports (if any). Greetings Helge -- Dr. Helge Kreutzmann debian@helgefjell.de Dipl.-Phys. http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php 64bit GNU powered gpg signed mail preferred Help keep free software "libre": http://www.ffii.de/
participants (2)
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Allan McRae
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Helge Kreutzmann