Manual page fix and clarifications

[lichray]

I saw !! "invokes shell-command..." sounds a little bit convoluted. Maybe "Whitespace followed by !, instead of writing the file, pipes the content to a shell-command."

[frno7]

I saw !!

Hmm, I only see ! with the man command but I have probably messed up the quoting anyway...

"invokes shell-command..." sounds a little bit convoluted. Maybe "Whitespace followed by !, instead of writing the file, pipes the content to a shell-command."

This is somewhat problematic, I think, because in the manual (and elsewhere) the word ‘file’ is used in two different ways: both as name (path) and as a collection of characters. This duality is normal in everyday usage, but it easily becomes confusing in terse technical writing. Hence

instead of writing the file

technically refers to a name (path), because the file as a collection of characters is actually still written, to an anonymous pipe. I think it’s important to avoid contradicting this duality of the word ‘file’. Perhaps simply whitespace followed by ! pipes the file to shell-command is acceptable?

One way to avoid some confusion in the manual is to replace the word file with path or filepath, as appropriate.

Incidentally, the manual could be clarified in several other ways: For example, it says shell-argument(s) in places where it seems shell-commands would be appropriate.

[lichray]

Thanks for the contribution!