_man only uses $manpath

_man only uses $manpath

[Adam Spiers]

Shouldn't _man calculate man page completions using `man -w' rather
than $manpath?  For me, $manpath is always empty, so man doesn't
complete anything.

Is it safe to assume that `-w' is present in all sensible versions of
man?

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Andrej Borsenkow]

On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Adam Spiers wrote:

> Shouldn't _man calculate man page completions using `man -w' rather
> than $manpath?  For me, $manpath is always empty, so man doesn't
> complete anything.
> 
> Is it safe to assume that `-w' is present in all sensible versions of
> man?
> 
> 


No. It is not supported on our system at least. And here I do need
$MANPATH.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrej Borsenkow 		Fax:   +7 (095) 737 2747
Siemens ICP ITS Moscow		Tel:   +7 (095) 737 2723

E-Mail: Andrej.Borsenkow@mow.siemens.ru
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Adam Spiers]

Andrej Borsenkow (Andrej.Borsenkow@mow.siemens.ru) wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Adam Spiers wrote:
> 
> > Shouldn't _man calculate man page completions using `man -w' rather
> > than $manpath?  For me, $manpath is always empty, so man doesn't
> > complete anything.
> > 
> > Is it safe to assume that `-w' is present in all sensible versions of
> > man?
> 
> No. It is not supported on our system at least. And here I do need
> $MANPATH.

Hmm.  What about man --path?  Maybe only the GNU man has it.

Sounds like we need some way of intelligently figuring out a solution
for both scenarios.  Does `man -w' return an error of some sort on
your system which we could test for?

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Andrej Borsenkow]

On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Adam Spiers wrote:

> 
> Sounds like we need some way of intelligently figuring out a solution
> for both scenarios.  Does `man -w' return an error of some sort on
> your system which we could test for?
> 
> 

Well, exit code != 0. I have no idea, how reliable it is (different
versions etc)

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrej Borsenkow 		Fax:   +7 (095) 737 2747
Siemens ICP ITS Moscow		Tel:   +7 (095) 737 2723

E-Mail: Andrej.Borsenkow@mow.siemens.ru
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Clint Adams]

> MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/man
> MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/share/man
> MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/X11R6/man
> MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/local/man

And if you want that as a colon-delimited list, you can run
the manpath binary.

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Clint Adams]

> Yes, a la `_x_color'.

Just to complicate things further, man_db (as used by Debian)
uses an /etc/manpath.config that looks like this:

MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/man
MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/share/man
MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/X11R6/man
MANDATORY_MANPATH                       /usr/local/man
#---------------------------------------------------------
# set up PATH to MANPATH mapping
# ie. what man tree holds man pages for what binary directory.
#
#               *PATH*        ->        *MANPATH*
#
MANPATH_MAP     /bin                    /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/bin                /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /sbin                   /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/sbin               /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/sbin         /usr/local/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/X11R6/bin          /usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/bin/X11            /usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/games              /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /opt/bin                /opt/man
MANPATH_MAP     /opt/sbin               /opt/man
#---------------------------------------------------------
#               *MANPATH*     ->        *CATPATH*
#
MANDB_MAP       /usr/man                /var/cache/man/fsstnd
MANDB_MAP       /usr/share/man          /var/cache/man
MANDB_MAP       /usr/local/man          /var/cache/man/local
MANDB_MAP       /usr/X11R6/man          /var/cache/man/X11R6
MANDB_MAP       /opt/man                /var/cache/man/opt

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Oliver Kiddle]

Adam Spiers wrote:
> 
> No, the GNU man displays all the man paths it will use if invoked as
> `man -w':

It seems that GNU man itself varies. The GNU man on the debian linux
system I have access to at work prints:
What manual page do you want?
in response to -w with no argument and has no -W option. Note that it
does return an exit code of 1 though so we can still use man -w if we
check the exit code. 

> In the GNU case, you can just grep /etc/man.config for `^MANPATH '.

That must be specific to your linux distribution as opposed to GNU man.

> I'd rather keep guessing as a last resort.  Maybe try man -w and check
> the exit code, then
>   if [[ -r /etc/man.config ]]; then

That's probably the best approach as long as we don't find a system that
breaks it.

Oliver Kiddle

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Adam Spiers]

Sven Wischnowsky (wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de) wrote:
> Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> > What are you trying to achieve with man -w - find a default manpath to
> > use if $manpath is unset? As far as I can tell man -w only gives you the
> > location of a specific man page which isn't entirely useful for finding
> > a default manpath as the default can (and often will) contain more than
> > one directory.

No, the GNU man displays all the man paths it will use if invoked as
`man -w':

       -w or --path
              Don't  actually display the man pages, but do print
              the location(s) of the files that would be  format-
              ted  or displayed. If no argument is given: display
              (on  stdout)  the  list  of  directories  that   is
              searched by man for man pages. If manpath is a link
              to  man,  then  "manpath"  is  equivalent  to  "man
              --path".

       -W     Like -w, but print file names one per line, without
              additional information.  This is  useful  in  shell
              commands like man -aW man | xargs ls -l

> > The only way I know of finding the default manpath is by
> > running the man binary through strings.

In the GNU case, you can just grep /etc/man.config for `^MANPATH '.

> > Maybe we could use a for loop to
> > guess possible man directories and check them.
> 
> Yes, a la `_x_color'.

I'd rather keep guessing as a last resort.  Maybe try man -w and check
the exit code, then

  if [[ -r /etc/man.config ]]; then 
    ...

?

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Sven Wischnowsky]

Oliver Kiddle wrote:

> Sven Wischnowsky wrote:
> > Andrej Borsenkow wrote:
> > > On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Adam Spiers wrote:
> > > > Sounds like we need some way of intelligently figuring out a solution
> > > > for both scenarios.  Does `man -w' return an error of some sort on
> > > > your system which we could test for?
> > > Well, exit code != 0. I have no idea, how reliable it is (different
> > > versions etc)
> > 
> > Same here for Digital Unix. Maybe we should test $OSTYPE?
> 
> The only man I can find which does support -w or --path is the GNU one.
> The exit code of != 0 seems fine on the systems I've looked at provided
> stderr is redirected.
> 
> What are you trying to achieve with man -w - find a default manpath to
> use if $manpath is unset? As far as I can tell man -w only gives you the
> location of a specific man page which isn't entirely useful for finding
> a default manpath as the default can (and often will) contain more than
> one directory. The only way I know of finding the default manpath is by
> running the man binary through strings. Maybe we could use a for loop to
> guess possible man directories and check them.

Yes, a la `_x_color'.

Bye
 Sven


--
Sven Wischnowsky                         wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Oliver Kiddle]

Sven Wischnowsky wrote:
> Andrej Borsenkow wrote:
> > On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Adam Spiers wrote:
> > > Sounds like we need some way of intelligently figuring out a solution
> > > for both scenarios.  Does `man -w' return an error of some sort on
> > > your system which we could test for?
> > Well, exit code != 0. I have no idea, how reliable it is (different
> > versions etc)
> 
> Same here for Digital Unix. Maybe we should test $OSTYPE?

The only man I can find which does support -w or --path is the GNU one.
The exit code of != 0 seems fine on the systems I've looked at provided
stderr is redirected.

What are you trying to achieve with man -w - find a default manpath to
use if $manpath is unset? As far as I can tell man -w only gives you the
location of a specific man page which isn't entirely useful for finding
a default manpath as the default can (and often will) contain more than
one directory. The only way I know of finding the default manpath is by
running the man binary through strings. Maybe we could use a for loop to
guess possible man directories and check them.

Oliver Kiddle

Re: _man only uses $manpath

[Sven Wischnowsky]

Andrej Borsenkow wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Adam Spiers wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Sounds like we need some way of intelligently figuring out a solution
> > for both scenarios.  Does `man -w' return an error of some sort on
> > your system which we could test for?
> > 
> > 
> 
> Well, exit code != 0. I have no idea, how reliable it is (different
> versions etc)

Same here for Digital Unix. Maybe we should test $OSTYPE?

Bye
 Sven


--
Sven Wischnowsky                         wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de