Re: chdir() in mandocdb

[Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de>]

Hi Kristaps,

Kristaps Dzonsons wrote on Thu, Dec 08, 2011 at 09:07:32AM +0100:
> Ingo Schwarze wrote:
>> Kristaps Dzonsons wrote:

>>> I notice that the chdir() for mandocdb()'s OP_NEW is into the base
>>> directory of the manuals (e.g., /usr/share/man).  However, when I
>>> run mandocdb over OpenBSD 5.0, I see a few inconsistencies:
>>>
>>>   /usr/X11R6/man/man3/XUngrabDevice.3

>> That was a bug in Xenocara, i fixed it here:
>>
>> http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/xenocara/lib/libXi/man/ \
>>   XIUngrabDevice.man

[...]
>>> All of these have an `so' in the current directory.  Looking at
>>> roff(7) for `so', this is the correct behaviour.

>> No; the roff(7) manual muddles the point.
>> What it says is correct, but only makes sense
>> when you already know that man(1) does a chdir(2)
>> to the root of the tree.

> Can we disambiguate roff(7) to this effect, assuming that the man(1)
> behaviour is consistent across operating systems?

Well, it has to be, X manuals enforce that consistency.

Hence, OK for the following patch?
  Ingo


Index: roff.7
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/share/man/man7/roff.7,v
retrieving revision 1.17
diff -u -r1.17 roff.7
--- roff.7	23 Nov 2011 02:12:22 -0000	1.17
+++ roff.7	10 Dec 2011 14:06:50 -0000
@@ -870,6 +870,22 @@
 .Qq ../
 and
 .Qq /.. .
+.Pp
+This request requires
+.Xr man 1
+to change to the right directory before calling
+.Xr mandoc 1 ,
+per convention to the root of the manual tree.
+Typical usage looks like:
+.Pp
+.Dl \&.so man3/Xcursor.3
+.Pp
+As the whole concept is rather fragile, usage of
+.Sx \&so
+is discouraged.
+Use
+.Xr ln 1
+instead.
 .Ss \&ta
 Set tab stops.
 This line-scoped request can take an arbitrary number of arguments.
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