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Ticket UUID: d5ddbc7f49bc0a8820c50da00db83fd4f2629e28
Title: Inconsistent terminology in error messages: should be vs. must be, unknown/ambiguous vs. bad
Type: Bug Version: fffc281b07873e1d3f381fe3dce5dec29df9aa47
Submitter: andy Created on: 2014-06-17 21:06:30
Subsystem: 45. Parsing and Eval Assigned To: dkf
Priority: 4 Severity: Minor
Status: Open Last Modified: 2014-09-14 11:15:00
Resolution: None Closed By: nobody
    Closed on:
Description:
% puts
wrong # args: should be "puts ?-nonewline? ?channelId? string"
% binary asdf
unknown or ambiguous subcommand "asdf": must be decode, encode, format, or scan
% fileevent asdf fdsa
bad event name "fdsa": must be readable or writable

Sometimes we get "should be", sometimes "must be". Sometimes it's "unknown or ambiguous", sometimes just "bad".

[fileevent] accepts unambiguous prefixes of readable and writable, so why doesn't it say "unknown or ambiguous event name"?
User Comments: dkf added on 2014-07-12 15:59:01:

Will be “should be” as that results in a smaller change to the test suite than “must be”.


dkf added on 2014-06-23 08:40:26:

Just FYI, “unknown or ambiguous” is a mark of something hand-written; the proper language is “ambiguous” when there are too many possible matches and “bad” when there are too few.