Re: [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: fix '*' wildcard formatting

[Joe Perches]

On Wed, 2026-03-04 at 14:42 -0800, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> It seems that these wildcards confuse some parser (docutils, sphinx,
> or maintainers_include.py), so quote them to avoid this issue.
> Also insert a hyphen ('-') before "all files" in several places
> to make the html output easier to read.
> 
> Fixes this htmldocs warning:
> 
> linux-next-20260304/MAINTAINERS:40: WARNING: Inline strong start-string without end-string. [docutils]

I think there should be a better way than this.
This just uglifies the perfectly readable ascii.

> 
> Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap <[rdunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx](mailto:rdunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)>
> ---
> Cc: Jonathan Corbet <[corbet@xxxxxxx](mailto:corbet@xxxxxxx)>
> Cc: Shuah Khan <[skhan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx](mailto:skhan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)>
> Cc: [linux-doc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx](mailto:linux-doc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
> Cc: Kees Cook <[kees@xxxxxxxxxx](mailto:kees@xxxxxxxxxx)>
> 
>  MAINTAINERS |   10 +++++-----
>  1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> --- linux-next-20260304.orig/MAINTAINERS
> +++ linux-next-20260304/MAINTAINERS
> @@ -32,10 +32,10 @@ Descriptions of section entries and pref
>  	   Type is one of: git, hg, quilt, stgit, topgit
>  	F: *Files* and directories wildcard patterns.
>  	   A trailing slash includes all files and subdirectory files.
> -	   F:	drivers/net/	all files in and below drivers/net
> -	   F:	drivers/net/*	all files in drivers/net, but not below
> -	   F:	*/net/*		all files in "any top level directory"/net
> -	   F:	fs/**/*foo*.c	all *foo*.c files in any subdirectory of fs
> +	   F:	``drivers/net/``  -	all files in and below drivers/net
> +	   F:	``drivers/net/*`` -	all files in drivers/net, but not below
> +	   F:	``*/net/*``       -	all files in "any top level directory"/net
> +	   F:	``fs/**/*foo*.c`` -	all *foo*.c files in any subdirectory of fs
>  	   One pattern per line.  Multiple F: lines acceptable.
>  	X: *Excluded* files and directories that are NOT maintained, same
>  	   rules as F:. Files exclusions are tested before file matches.
> @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ Descriptions of section entries and pref
>  	   X:	net/ipv6/
>  	   matches all files in and below net excluding net/ipv6/
>  	N: Files and directories *Regex* patterns.
> -	   N:	[^a-z]tegra	all files whose path contains tegra
> +	   N:	[^a-z]tegra -	all files whose path contains tegra
>  	                        (not including files like integrator)
>  	   One pattern per line.  Multiple N: lines acceptable.
>  	   scripts/get_maintainer.pl has different behavior for files that
> 
> ```