Thank you for an excellent exposition. This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for.

I agree with almost everything you say (and I'll only be slightly annoying by replying further).

In several cases, such as stat, I would prefer something more generic than FILENAME. Something that conveys FILESYSTEMENTITY, but that doesn't work. I can't come up with anything better.

In the other direction, some uses of EXPR seem almost lazy by comparison. Once the concept that an expression can be evaluated into a value or list, the docs don't need to use EXPR much. Where it's clear and simple, I'd go for a more descriptive term, such as your lstat PATHNAME example. I especially like localtime EPOCHSECONDS.

I still don't like chmod LIST, because the first element is distinctly different from the rest. chmod MODE, LIST seems much clearer and more descriptive. In most cases LIST is about as useful as EXPR, if only slightly better in conveying multiple values are possible.

(Aside: I wish module synopses were on average clearer, as in many cases I have to read deeper to find out that it was easier than the first read.)

-QM
--
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

In reply to Re^4: mkdir in perldoc (prototypes) by QM
in thread mkdir in perldoc by QM

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