MySQL Bugs: #35436: Server help tables: broken formatting

Bug #35436	Server help tables: broken formatting
Submitted:	19 Mar 2008 12:55	Modified:	20 Mar 2008 16:42
Reporter:	Stefan Hinz	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Documentation	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:	5.1.23	OS:	Linux (SuSE 10.3)
Assigned to:	Paul DuBois	CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
The output of the server help tables is broken: Line breaks are missing for <programlisting> elements, resulting in a garbled display, like this:

mysql> help show slave hosts
Name: 'SHOW SLAVE HOSTS'
Description:
Syntax:
SHOW SLAVE HOSTS

Displays a list of replication slaves currently registered with the
master. Only slaves started with the --report-host=slave_name option
are visible in this list.

The list is displayed on any server (not just the master server). The
output looks like this: mysql> SHOW SLAVE HOSTS;
+------------+-----------+------+-----------+ | Server_id | Host | Port
| Master_id | +------------+-----------+------+-----------+ | 192168010
| iconnect2 | 3306 | 192168011 | | 1921680101 | athena | 3306 |
192168011 | +------------+-----------+------+-----------+ Server_id:
The unique server ID of the slave server, as configured in the server's
option file, or on the command line with --server-id=value . Host: The
host name of the slave server, as configured in the server's option
file, or on the command line with --report-host=value. Note that this
can differ from the machine name as configured in the operating system.
Port: The port the slave server is listening on. Master_id: The unique
server ID of the master server that the slave server is replicating
from. Some MySQL versions report another variable, Rpl_recovery_rank.
This variable was never used, and was eventually removed.

URL: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/show-slave-hosts.html

How to repeat:
Issue HELP SHOW SLAVE HOSTS in mysql.

Suggested fix:
Add line breaks to programlisting elements in server help table format.

The root cause of the problem seems to be this:

- <programlisting> elements that are marked as examples display correctly

- <programlisting> elements that occur within general description sections are wrapped (like <para> text) and display incorrectly

So the transform that produces help tables needs to recognize this and not wrap within-description program listings.

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been addressed in the documentation. The updated documentation will appear on our website shortly, and will be included in the next release of the relevant products.

Problem turned out to be improper element nesting. Using proper nesting corrected the issue.