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

On Mon, 18 May 2026 at 15:06, Brooks Davis <brooks@freebsd.org> wrote:
>
> 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).

stab(5) seems like a suitable reference, yeah. I've added that now.
While we could copy the `struct nlist` definition into nlist I think
the stab(5) Xr might give a bit more of a clue about why struct fields
are as they are.

> 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.

Oh, indeed. Looking now I see over 250 man pages with a .Dd still in
the 1900s. About 50 of those are in lib/libc, 90 in share/man. Those
may be good lists to start from.