Re: Inconsistent behavior when localized man pages exist

["Érico Nogueira" <ericonr@disroot.org>]

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On Sun Jan 3, 2021 at 5:28 PM -03, Érico Nogueira wrote:
> Hi!
>
> On Void Linux, we recently re-enabled installation of localized man
> pages. However, man(1) (version 1.14.5) behaves rather strangely on
> such occasions. I have attached a tarball with the file structure I'm
> currently diagnosing this issue in. The file list inside it is as such:
>
> usr/share/man/ca/man1/kate.1
> usr/share/man/pt_BR/man1/kate.1
> usr/share/man/man1/kate.1
>
> For starters, the default /etc/man.conf is as seen below:
>
> manpath /usr/share/local/man
> manpath /usr/share/man
>
> In this initial case, `man kate` will open
> /usr/share/man/ca/man1/kate.1, after, according to strace(1), calling
> access(2) on the other files as well:
>
> chdir("/usr/share/man") = 0
> [...]
> access("ca/man1/kate.1", R_OK) = 0
> access("pt_BR/man1/kate.1", R_OK) = 0
> access("man1/kate.1", R_OK) = 0
>
> In my opinion, this isn't intended behavior, since I don't have anything
> (such as a LANG environment variable) that would indicate any preference
> for the ca man page. If I add a `manpath /usr/share/man/pt_BR` entry to
> the tail of man.conf, the same thing still happens; it's only if I add
> it somewhere before the `manpath /usr/share/man` entry that I get the
> pt_BR man page.
>
> Interestingly, applying the patches discussed in [1] was enough for this
> issue not to present itself. However, given that the problems discussed
> there didn't seem at all related to my current issue, I don't know for
> sure that the fix wasn't accidental; if it was, I would be interested in
> getting a proper fix, and if it wasn't, I'd like to be sure of it.

It seems those patches alone weren't enough. I just had the same issue
crop up again (though in a somewhat unorthodox setup).

From man.conf:

manpath /usr/share/man/pt_BR
manpath /usr/local/share/man
manpath /usr/share/man
manpath /home/ericonr/extern/i686-musl/usr/share/man

In the path from the last entry, I have:

/home/ericonr/extern/i686-musl/usr/share/man/pl.UTF-8/man1/wine.1
/home/ericonr/extern/i686-musl/usr/share/man/man1/wine.1
/home/ericonr/extern/i686-musl/usr/share/man/fr.UTF-8/man1/wine.1
/home/ericonr/extern/i686-musl/usr/share/man/de.UTF-8/man1/wine.1

These files are included as an attached tarball. None of the other paths
have a wine.X man page.

When I run `man wine`, I get the de.UTF-8 version of the man page, which
is the same situation I had with kate before.

>
> [1] https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/9868
>
> Furthermore, as a feature request (that I would be willing to work on),
> I believe it might be interesting to make man(1) smart enough to use man
> pages from $manpath/$locale, where $locale could be $LANG itself and/or
> $LANG stripped of the '.UTF-8' suffix (or even turned from 'll_CC' to
> 'll').
>
> Finally, I would like to ask about the possibility of a mandoc release;
> we are already carrying some patches for essential fixes, including the
> ones from [1]. If there's anything that I could help with for that,
> please let me know.
>
> Happy new year,
> Érico

Cheers,
Érico

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