this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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    RTFM is Sage (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
    submitted 4 days ago by miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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    [–] noxypaws@pawb.social 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

    Following the openbsd example from the original comment I replied to, it has absolutely nothing to say about what brackets mean, so this advice would not be helpful for an openbsd system: https://man.openbsd.org/man

    On my personal linux system (arch derivative, by the way), it at least mentions brackets meaning optional, but only in the context of arguments:

       [-abc]             any or all arguments within [ ] are optional.

    I think this would trip up some new users. The destination, with or without the username to connect as, may not seem like an "argument" to a new user since it doesn't have a dash before it like the example does

    [–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    this advice would not be helpful for an openbsd system

    Sorry, I wasn't aware of that. BSD usually has excellent ~~pan~~ man pages.

    Here's the relevant section in the Linux one:

    The following conventions apply to the SYNOPSIS section and can be used as a guide in other  sections.

       **bold text**          type exactly as shown.
       *italic text*        replace with appropriate argument.
       [-abc]             any or all arguments within [ ] are optional.
       -a|-b              options delimited by | cannot be used together.
       argument ...       argument is repeatable.
       [expression] ...   entire expression within [ ] is repeatable.

    The destination, with or without the username to connect as, may not seem like an “argument” to a new user since it doesn’t have a dash before it like the example does

    Then the new user should real the ssh manpage which very clearly specifies that it is.