Re: git: 876a17321c89 - main - nlist.3: Replace a.out(5) Xref with elf(5)

From: Brooks Davis <brooks_at_freebsd.org>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2026 19:06:43 UTC
On Mon, May 18, 2026 at 02:55:40PM +0000, Ed Maste wrote:
> The branch main has been updated by emaste:
> 
> URL: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/src/commit/?id=876a17321c896427d70de94101df4d888a19189b
> 
> commit 876a17321c896427d70de94101df4d888a19189b
> Author:     Ed Maste <emaste@FreeBSD.org>
> AuthorDate: 2026-05-18 14:50:22 +0000
> Commit:     Ed Maste <emaste@FreeBSD.org>
> CommitDate: 2026-05-18 14:55:32 +0000
> 
>     nlist.3: Replace a.out(5) Xref with elf(5)
>     
>     ELF support was added to nlist() in 1997, and a.out support was removed
>     in 2020.  The man page was not updated for either of these changes.

I'm not sure this is quite the right change.  struct nlist is documented in
a.out(5) not elf(5).  It's also documented in stab(5) so it might be
that is a better reference.  Ultimately, we might want to embed
documentation of the relevant parts of struct nlist in nlist(3).

There's a whole cluster of excedingly obsolete manpages in this area
including, for example, link(5) which seems to have not had a technical
content change since 1995.

-- Brooks