This is the mail archive of the
gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: [DOC PATCH] Rewrite docs for inline asm
- From: kenner at vlsi1 dot ultra dot nyu dot edu (Richard Kenner)
- To: aph at redhat dot com
- Cc: gcc-patches at gcc dot gnu dot org, gerald at pfeifer dot com, hp at bitrange dot com, james dot greenhalgh at arm dot com, joseph at codesourcery dot com, limegreensocks at yahoo dot com, rdsandiford at googlemail dot com
- Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 06:56:17 EDT
- Subject: Re: [DOC PATCH] Rewrite docs for inline asm
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <533F0C97 dot 2010206 at yahoo dot com> <alpine dot BSF dot 2 dot 02 dot 1404081759100 dot 23831 at arjuna dot pair dot com> <5344DAC3 dot 90005 at yahoo dot com> <alpine dot BSF dot 2 dot 02 dot 1404122053010 dot 48644 at arjuna dot pair dot com> <534A5BFD dot 3000906 at yahoo dot com> <alpine dot BSF dot 2 dot 02 dot 1404132037070 dot 39694 at arjuna dot pair dot com> <534B7F38 dot 9010605 at yahoo dot com> <20140425154343 dot GA30738 at arm dot com> <alpine dot LSU dot 2 dot 11 dot 1404251938320 dot 2591 at tuna dot site> <535CC64A dot 1080803 at redhat dot com>
> >>> any symbols it references. This may result in those symbols getting
> >>> discarded by GCC as unreferenced.
> >
> > We can omit "by GCC" here.
>
> We can, but we should not. We should avoid the passive voice like the
> plague in technical documentation, even if doing so leads to some
> slight redundancy.
I agree, but that's still passive voice (you need not omit the actor to be
using passive voice)! Active voice (which is indeed preferred) is "This
may result in GCC discarding those symbols as unreferenced." (For those
who don't know, a good test of whether something is the passive voice is that
you *could* remove the actor and the sentence would still be grammatically
correct. That's the case above.) Writing in the passive voice with the
actor present is indeed better than the passive voice with the actor removed,
but the active voice is still the preferred style.