* Re: Arch Linux Improvements
2018-12-30 1:25 Arch Linux Improvements John McKay
@ 2018-12-30 2:57 ` Ingo Schwarze
2018-12-30 22:01 ` John McKay
0 siblings, 1 reply; 3+ messages in thread
From: Ingo Schwarze @ 2018-12-30 2:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: John McKay; +Cc: discuss
Hi John,
John McKay wrote on Sun, Dec 30, 2018 at 01:25:59AM +0000:
> The man-pages package in Arch Linux has two versions of the manual
> page for several topics. One is the version from the Linux man-pages
> project and the other is from the POSIX reference.
POSIX is not providing manual pages, even though the form is
superficially similar. But first, those are not manual pages because
they do not even attempt to explain things in a way that is easy
to understand for users; instead, they are standards documents,
aiming for maximum formalism, in a way which is typically quite
hard to understand even for very experienced programmers. Those
are documents for lawyers, not for users. And secondly, as you
say, they don't document the tools you have actually installed.
So do not install them in the manpath. Install them somewhere else
where man(1) does not find them by default, for example below
/usr/share/doc/posix/man/ and instruct the few users who really
want to use man(1) for reading these pages to use
$ man -M /usr/share/doc/posix/man
> For example
> /usr/share/man/man3/freeaddrinfo.3p.gz
> /usr/share/man/man3/getaddrinfo.3.gz
> both contain entries for freeaddrinfo(3).
Right, that is a totally broken installation. The manual page
system - neither the traditional one nor the mandoc implemation -
is not designed for mixing completely different things in the same
directory.
> This causes two difficulties when using mandoc on Arch Linux. The
> first is that if you type
> man freeaddrinfo
> it pulls up the POSIX version. The POSIX versions of the pages are
> typically not what you want as they have less detail and don't always
> match the implementation described in the other page. The second
> difficulty is that even if you specify
> man -s 3 freeaddrinfo
> it still brings up the POSIX version. While fixing the first
> difficulty seems to be non-trivial (I have a patch that works for me,
> but it's a bit of a hack and not portable to other systems), the
> second difficulty seems much easier to fix. I have attached a patch
> below.
>
> The cause is twofold. In dbadd_mlink it adds the page both with the
> section that is found in the containing folder and also the section
> that is found by scanning the file name. Also, in lstmatch the section
> names are compared using strcasestr.
All that is done on purpose. Several systems install pages with
suffixes in the filenames (like 3x for X11 library pages) and you
do want to find these with man -s 3, not only with man -s 3x.
Also, when the section in the directory name, file name, and in the
file itself contradict each other - like 3, 3p, 3 in your broken
installation, which should be either 3, 3, 3 or 3p, 3p, 3p, but not
a mix of both - then it is intentional that all variants are found.
After all, you have all those section names in your tree for that
pages, so man(1) should better find it for each of the names.
> By only adding the page using the file name's section and changing
> lstmatch to use strcasecmp the search by section allows you to find
> the correct version of the page.
No way. You are deleting important functionality.
> There are two side effects. If you have a manual page that's in the
> correct folder but is named wrong you can no longer find it if you
> search by section. You also cannot truncate the architecture name when
> searching by architecture. None of the manual pages on my system have
> names that don't match the folder they are in.
You do have such pages, look at what you wrote above: man3/freeaddrinfo.3p
> I never search by architecture
Others users do, so we can't break that functionality.
> so I don't know if it's common to shorten the name.
>
> Any comments are greatly appreciated, especially concerning a fix for
> the order that it uses to find the result shown.
If you have two pages that both match the name and the section
and that come from the same manpath, the selection is unspecified.
There is simply no way to select one or the other, they are identitical
in every respect, according to the search criteria.
The solution is to not have contradictory manual pages in the same
tree. Keep your tree consistent.
Manual pages have four properties: manpath (=tree), name, section,
architecture. If you have a four-tuple that matches two pages, you
cannot tell the two them apart. At least one of the four properties
must be different to be able to select one but not the other.
If you have a broken tree containing conflicts, the best you can do
is use man -a and show all conflicting versions together.
> Index: mandocdb.c
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvs/mandoc/mandocdb.c,v
> retrieving revision 1.261
> diff -c -u -r1.261 mandocdb.c
> --- mandocdb.c 14 Dec 2018 01:18:26 -0000 1.261
> +++ mandocdb.c 29 Dec 2018 23:15:01 -0000
> @@ -2022,7 +2022,7 @@
> dbadd_mlink(const struct mlink *mlink)
> {
> dba_page_alias(mlink->mpage->dba, mlink->name, NAME_FILE);
> - dba_page_add(mlink->mpage->dba, DBP_SECT, mlink->dsec);
No. That breaks various use cases, for example preformatted
pages like /usr/local/man/cat5/mwmrc.0, pages with unusual file
names, and so on.
> dba_page_add(mlink->mpage->dba, DBP_SECT, mlink->fsec);
> dba_page_add(mlink->mpage->dba, DBP_ARCH, mlink->arch);
> dba_page_add(mlink->mpage->dba, DBP_FILE, mlink->file);
> Index: mansearch.c
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvs/mandoc/mansearch.c,v
> retrieving revision 1.80
> diff -c -u -r1.80 mansearch.c
> --- mansearch.c 13 Dec 2018 11:55:46 -0000 1.80
> +++ mansearch.c 29 Dec 2018 23:15:01 -0000
> @@ -534,7 +537,8 @@
> if (want == NULL || have == NULL || *have == '\0')
> return 1;
> while (*have != '\0') {
> - if (strcasestr(have, want) != NULL)
> + if (strcasecmp(have, want) == 0)
No. If you do that on Solaris, then basically nothing whatsoever
works any longer, just to give one drastic example of the several
ways in which that breaks:
schwarze@login [login]:~ > ls /usr/share/man/
entities man3libucb man3volmgt sman3curses sman3sasl
man.cf man3m man3wsreg sman3dat sman3scf
man1 man3mail man3xcurses sman3devid sman3sched
man1b man3malloc man3xfn sman3devinfo sman3sec
man1c man3mlib man3xnet sman3dl sman3secdb
man1f man3mp man3xtsol sman3dmi sman3slp
man1m man3mpapi man4 sman3door sman3smartcard
man1s man3mvec man4b sman3elf sman3snmp
man2 man3nsl man5 sman3exacct sman3socket
man3 man3nvpair man6 sman3ext sman3sysevent
man3aio man3pam man7 sman3gen sman3tecla
man3bsm man3papi man7d sman3gss sman3thr
man3c man3perl man7fs sman3hbaapi sman3tiff
man3c_db man3picl man7i sman3head sman3tnf
man3cfgadm man3picltree man7ipp sman3kstat sman3ucb
man3commputil man3plot man7m sman3kvm sman3uuid
man3contract man3pool man7p sman3layout sman3volmgt
man3cpc man3proc man8 sman3ldap sman3wsreg
man3curses man3project man9 sman3lgrp sman3xcurses
man3dat man3rac man9e sman3lib sman3xfn
man3devid man3resolv man9f sman3libucb sman3xnet
man3devinfo man3rpc man9p sman3m sman4
man3dl man3rsm man9s sman3mail sman4b
man3dlpi man3rt manl sman3malloc sman5
man3dmi man3sasl mann sman3mlib sman6
man3door man3scf sman1 sman3mp sman7
man3elf man3sched sman1as sman3nsl sman7d
man3exacct man3sec sman1b sman3nvpair sman7fs
man3ext man3secdb sman1c sman3pam sman7i
man3fm man3sip sman1f sman3perl sman7ipp
man3fontconfig man3slp sman1m sman3picl sman7m
man3gen man3smartcard sman1s sman3picltree sman7p
man3gss man3snmp sman2 sman3plot sman9
man3hbaapi man3socket sman3 sman3pool sman9e
man3head man3sysevent sman3aio sman3proc sman9f
man3kstat man3tecla sman3bsm sman3project sman9p
man3kvm man3thr sman3c sman3rac sman9s
man3layout man3tnf sman3c_db sman3resolv windex
man3ldap man3tsol sman3cfgadm sman3rpc
man3lgrp man3ucb sman3contract sman3rsm
man3lib man3uuid sman3cpc sman3rt
schwarze@login [login]:~ > uname -a
SunOS login 5.10 Generic_150400-17 sun4v sparc SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise-T5220
schwarze@login [login]:~ >
Yours,
Ingo
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