#29698: Correct and clarify documentation of xargs -d option

* xargs/xargs.1: Update documentation for -d option to more
clearly distinguish the treatment of backslashes in the input and
the treatment of backslashes in the argument to -d.
* NEWS: Mention this bugfix.

3 files changed, 18 insertions, 8 deletions

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index cae72653..8c6db5c1 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
 2011-05-15  James Youngman  <jay@gnu.org>
 
+	#29698: Correct and clarify documentation of xargs -d option
+	* xargs/xargs.1: Update documentation for -d option to more
+	clearly distinguish the treatment of backslashes in the input and
+	the treatment of backslashes in the argument to -d.
+	* NEWS: Mention this bugfix.
+
 	Implement xargs --process-slot-var.
 	* xargs/xargs.c (set_slot_var): New function; sets an environment
 	variable to the index of the entry in pids[] that represents the
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index bde307b1..d91dd260 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ GNU findutils NEWS - User visible changes.      -*- outline -*- (allout)
 
 ** Bug Fixes
 
+#29698: Correct and clarify documentation of xargs -d option
+
 #32887: Present xargs options alphabetically like in GNU cp(1) etc
 
 #14386: updatedb relies on mktemp, which is not portable.
diff --git a/xargs/xargs.1 b/xargs/xargs.1
index 01360dcd..6541c52d 100644
--- a/xargs/xargs.1
+++ b/xargs/xargs.1
@@ -112,14 +112,7 @@ from
 .TP
 .PD
 .BI "\-\-delimiter=" delim ", \-d" " delim"
-Input items are terminated by the specified character.  Quotes and
-backslash are not special; every character in the input is taken
-literally.  Disables the end-of-file string, which is treated like any
-other argument.  This can be used when the input consists of simply
-newline-separated items, although it is almost always better to design
-your program to use
-.B \-\-null
-where this is possible.  The specified
+Input items are terminated by the specified character.  The specified
 delimiter may be a single character, a C-style character escape such
 as
 .BR \en ,
@@ -127,6 +120,15 @@ or an octal or hexadecimal escape code.  Octal and hexadecimal
 escape codes are understood as for the
 .B printf
 command.   Multibyte characters are not supported.
+When processing the input, quotes and backslash are not special; every
+character in the input is taken literally.  The
+.B \-d
+option disables any end-of-file string, which is treated like any
+other argument.  You can use this option when the input consists of
+simply newline-separated items, although it is almost always better to
+design your program to use
+.B \-\-null
+where this is possible.
 
 .TP
 .BI \-E " eof-str"