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135 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
135 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
README file for man(1).
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This is a replacement for Un*x man(1), apropos(1), whatis(1), and
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manpath(1). It has all kinds of neat features that other versions of
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man don't, including support for multiple man page directory trees,
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preformatted man pages, and troff. It is provided without any
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warranty whatever. I hope you find it useful.
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This program is not a GNU product but it is distributed under the
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terms of the GNU copyleft which is described in the file COPYING.
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There is a solution written in perl which is probably superior in
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every way, but, like me, you may prefer this one anyway.
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:-)
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If you compile with support for preformatted man pages, man(1) will
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try to update the preformatted page if the man page source is newer.
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If you compile with support for troff, you can say things like
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`man -t foo | psdit > foo.ps' and have fabulous printed documentation
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as well.
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I have resisted the temptation to handle all the bizarre ways various
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vendors have of organizing man pages. This version of man assumes
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that directory trees have the structure:
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.../man
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/manSect
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/foo.Sect*
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...
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/catSect
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/foo.Sect*
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...
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where Sect is some number or string and should be listed in the set of
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sections to be searched. It is not necessary to have both the cat*
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and man* subdirectories, but you must have at least one. :-)
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INSTALLATION
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1. Run configure. This will grope around your system a bit and then
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ask you a number of questions. It will create a Makefile from the
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file Makefile.in, and a config.h file from config.h.in. You may
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have to do some fine tuning to get things to work exactly right on
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your system. If you do, I'd like to know what changes you had to
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make to get things working.
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2. Edit the manpath.config file. This determines the system-wide
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mappings for bin directories and man page directories.
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3. Do a `make all', try it out, and then if you're happy with that, do
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a `make install'. You don't need to be root to use this set of
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programs.
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4. Install the whatis database(s) by running makewhatis. If you want
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to keep things absolutely current, you'll need to run this whenever
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you add new man pages. You might want to add an entry in your
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crontab.
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BUGS
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If you find one of these, please tell me about it. If you have a fix,
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that's even better. If not, I can't guarantee that I'll fix it, but I
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would like to know about them.
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John Eaton
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jwe@che.utexas.edu
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Department of Chemical Engineering
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The University of Texas at Austin
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Austin, Texas 78712
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CHANGES
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Partial list of changes since version 1.0:
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Installation made easier (this was the intent anyway) with the
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introduction of a configure script.
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Commands like `man 3f intro' handled properly when the name of the
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file we want is something like .../man3/intro.3f.
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Man can now run set uid to a special user so formatted man pages don't
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have to be world writable.
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Man now works with compressed (.Z) frozen (.F) and yabba (.Y) cat
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files. Frozen files are compressed files using freeze/melt, some
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combination of LZW and tree coding. Sources for it came out on
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comp.sources.misc or alt.sources or ... a few months ago. Yabba files
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are compressed using yabba/unyabba, a data compression scheme posted
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to alt.sources by Dan Bernstein.
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Man now uses a more reasonable default for the search order:
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1, n, l, 6, 8, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, p, o
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Man now allows for user-definable section search order via -S or
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MANSECT.
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Glob.c can work even if you don't have alloca, and works properly on
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Suns with the Sun C compiler.
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There is now a way to automatically to run preprocessors like the Sun
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man program. The first line of the man page indicates which
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preprocessors should be run:
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If the first line is a string of the form:
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'\" X
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where X is separated from the the `"' by a single SPACE and
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consists of any combination of characters in the following
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list, man pipes its input to troff(1) or nroff(1) through
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the corresponding preprocessors.
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e eqn(1), or neqn for nroff
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g grap(1)
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p pic(1)
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r refer(1)
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t tbl(1), and col(1V) for nroff
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v vgrind(1)
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Preprocessors may also be set on the command line with -p or from the
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environment with MANROFFSEQ.
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The tbl preprocessor is run by default.
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Manpath now stat()'s the directories in MANPATH to avoid including
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directories that don't exist.
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The output of apropos and whatis are now piped through PAGER.
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There is a new option to show where you would find a man page
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(-w option) and in what order (-w with -a).
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