Re: MANPATH and overriding/modifying default paths.

[Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>]

On 18/12/2011 15:52, Kristaps Dzonsons wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A while back, I complained to Ingo that MANPATH is heavy-handed: it
> doesn't allow us to modify the default search path (in, e.g.,
> /etc/man.conf), but only override it.
>
> He mentioned that in manpath(1) used on systems, MANPATH can modify
> instead of override by placemen to colons. To wit:

Ugh, I obviously shouldn't type so quickly... "the manpath(1) utility 
(Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux) can modify the default list by placement of 
colons".

>
> MANPATH
> If $MANPATH is set, manpath displays its value rather than determining
> it on the fly. If $MANPATH is prefixed by a colon, then the value of the
> variable is appended to the list determined from the content of the
> configuration files. If the colon comes at the end of the value in the
> variable, then the determined list is appended to the content of the
> variable. If the value of the variable contains a double colon (::),
> then the determined list is inserted in the middle of the value, between
> the two colons.
>
> The enclosed patch does just this for apropos(1), whatis(1), and
> catman(8) (which is also updated with -C like the others). I modified
> the explanation above to be (I hope) a little clearer as to precedence.
>
> Objections?
>
> I personally like this, as on shared machines I usually have a
> scattering of utilities in my ~/bin and would love a ~/man with the
> manuals showing up by default (i.e., manually running mandocdb(8) to
> generate databases then setting MANPATH in my .profile). It has always,
> always annoyed me that I can't do this.
>
> Take care,
>
> Kristaps

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