pingcap / pingcap/docs

Unclear parenthetical "(at the same time)" in dm-online-ddl-tool-support.md

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Description

Error Report

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In the "Configure parameters" section, under "v2.0.5 and later", this sentence is hard to parse:

If the upstream MySQL/MariaDB (at the same time) uses the gh-ost or pt-osc tool, set online-ddl to true in the task configuration file:

The parenthetical "(at the same time)" doesn't clearly attach to anything else in the sentence, and it's unclear what it's meant to convey — e.g., whether it means "concurrently with DM's replication task", "using both gh-ost and pt-osc simultaneously" (which would be odd given the very next words are "or"), or something else. By contrast, the parallel sentence in the "earlier than v2.0.5" tab right below has no such parenthetical:

If the upstream MySQL/MariaDB uses the gh-ost tool, set it in the task configuration file:

I checked the Chinese source (docs-cn, same file/branch) and the same parenthetical is present there too (如上游 MySQL/MariaDB **(同时)**使用 gh-ost 或 pt-osc 工具), so this isn't an EN-translation-introduced issue — it traces back to the original Chinese wording. Could someone familiar with the original intent clarify what "(at the same time)"/"(同时)" is meant to express here, so the sentence can be reworded more clearly (or the parenthetical removed if it isn't adding real meaning)?

(Found while reviewing the Japanese translation of this file, which faithfully mirrors this same ambiguity from the English/Chinese source — so this is a source-content clarity issue, not a translation defect.)

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First steps

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  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Open dm/dm-online-ddl-tool-support.md and read the “Configure parameters” section under “v2.0.5 and later,” comparing it with the earlier-version wording and the linked Chinese source. Confirm what “at the same time” is intended to mean with someone familiar with DM, then revise the sentence so its meaning is unambiguous or remove the parenthetical if it adds no meaning.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
mariadb, mysql
Domain
databases, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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