Re: [PATCH] CodingGuidelines: document which output goes to stdout vs. stderr

On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 6:27 PM Philip Oakley [off-list ref] wrote:

On 01/12/2021 05:32, Eric Sunshine wrote:

quoted

+Program Output
+
+ We make a distinction between a command's primary output and output
+ which is merely chatty feedback (for instance, status messages,
+ running transcript, or progress display), as well as error messages.
+ Roughly speaking, a command's primary output is that which one might
+ want to capture to a file or send down a pipe; its chatty output
+ should not interfere with those use-cases.

Is there a case for commenting on whether chatty output may be
suppressed if not feeding a terminal, or is that mentioned elsewhere? I
often see comments about the isatty() detection.

I don't think I saw any such mention when reading through
CodingGuidelines before composing the new text. That's certainly a
topic which could be addressed, but I don't plan on adding it to this
patch since I don't have any specific idea in mind for how it would be
discussed. However, the new "Program Output" section added by this
patch seems a good place to add that discussion if someone wants to
have a go at it as a separate patch atop this one.