[Bug 2145130] [NEW] Manual page for ln contains no information on order of file operands

[Anselm Schüler]

Public bug reported:

The manual page for ln lists only one usage that ends in "<files>"
instead of more a specific description of which file operand has what
meaning. GNU Coreutils manual pages on other systems I have show the
following usage:

SYNOPSIS
       ln [OPTION]... [-T] TARGET LINK_NAME
       ln [OPTION]... TARGET
       ln [OPTION]... TARGET... DIRECTORY
       ln [OPTION]... -t DIRECTORY TARGET...

whereas on Ubuntu I get:

SYNOPSIS
       ln  [--backup]  [-b ] [-f|--force] [-i|--interactive] [-n|--no-dereference] [-L|--logical] [-P|--physical] [-s|--symbolic] [-S|--suffix] [-t|--target-directory] [-T|--no-tar‐
       get-directory] [-r|--relative] [-v|--verbose] [-h|--help] [-V|--version] <files>

Despite only listing one usage variant, the EXTRA section says "In the
1st form, create a link to TARGET with the name LINK_NAME.  In the 2nd
form, create a link to TARGET in the current directory." as if there is
a 1st and 2nd form.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 25.10
Package: coreutils-from-uutils 0.0.0~ubuntu24
Uname: Linux 6.19.8 x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.33.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
Date: Sun Mar 22 09:27:16 2026
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, user)
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 TERM=xterm-256color
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
SourcePackage: coreutils-from
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

** Affects: coreutils-from (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug questing

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2145130

Title:
  Manual page for ln contains no information on order of file operands

Status in coreutils-from package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  The manual page for ln lists only one usage that ends in "<files>"
  instead of more a specific description of which file operand has what
  meaning. GNU Coreutils manual pages on other systems I have show the
  following usage:

  SYNOPSIS
         ln [OPTION]... [-T] TARGET LINK_NAME
         ln [OPTION]... TARGET
         ln [OPTION]... TARGET... DIRECTORY
         ln [OPTION]... -t DIRECTORY TARGET...

  whereas on Ubuntu I get:

  SYNOPSIS
         ln  [--backup]  [-b ] [-f|--force] [-i|--interactive] [-n|--no-dereference] [-L|--logical] [-P|--physical] [-s|--symbolic] [-S|--suffix] [-t|--target-directory] [-T|--no-tar‐
         get-directory] [-r|--relative] [-v|--verbose] [-h|--help] [-V|--version] <files>

  Despite only listing one usage variant, the EXTRA section says "In the
  1st form, create a link to TARGET with the name LINK_NAME.  In the 2nd
  form, create a link to TARGET in the current directory." as if there
  is a 1st and 2nd form.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 25.10
  Package: coreutils-from-uutils 0.0.0~ubuntu24
  Uname: Linux 6.19.8 x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.33.1-0ubuntu3
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
  Date: Sun Mar 22 09:27:16 2026
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   PATH=(custom, user)
   SHELL=/bin/bash
   TERM=xterm-256color
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
  SourcePackage: coreutils-from
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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