From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp-1.sys.kth.se (smtp-1.sys.kth.se [130.237.32.175]) by krisdoz.my.domain (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id pBIF8QUr013885 for ; Sun, 18 Dec 2011 10:08:26 -0500 (EST) Received: from mailscan-1.sys.kth.se (mailscan-1.sys.kth.se [130.237.32.91]) by smtp-1.sys.kth.se (Postfix) with ESMTP id 21EC4156B6B for ; Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:08:21 +0100 (CET) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at kth.se Received: from smtp-1.sys.kth.se ([130.237.32.175]) by mailscan-1.sys.kth.se (mailscan-1.sys.kth.se [130.237.32.91]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 45APlfaMM5yU for ; Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:08:20 +0100 (CET) X-KTH-Auth: kristaps [83.250.6.251] X-KTH-mail-from: kristaps@bsd.lv X-KTH-rcpt-to: tech@mdocml.bsd.lv Received: from macky.local (c83-250-6-251.bredband.comhem.se [83.250.6.251]) by smtp-1.sys.kth.se (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6279A156B5C for ; Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:08:20 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <4EEE01E4.9010604@bsd.lv> Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:08:20 +0100 From: Kristaps Dzonsons User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:8.0) Gecko/20111105 Thunderbird/8.0 X-Mailinglist: mdocml-tech Reply-To: tech@mdocml.bsd.lv MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tech@mdocml.bsd.lv Subject: Re: MANPATH and overriding/modifying default paths. References: <4EEDFE12.4020702@bsd.lv> In-Reply-To: <4EEDFE12.4020702@bsd.lv> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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 -- To unsubscribe send an email to tech+unsubscribe@mdocml.bsd.lv