rh26@prism.gatech.EDU (Howard,Robert L) (07/18/89)
I followed a previous thread about the standard organization of the UNIX
man pages but don't recall any discussion about what is now an immediate
problem.
What are the manl and mann directories under /usr/man for? (I understand
the structure of the man[1-8] directories) The system under consideration
is a Sun 386i running SunOS 4.0.1.
I had made a guess that it would be for extra man pages (for third party
applications, etc.) and put some man pages there. The trouble came when
I wanted to create the man pages for the application that would have the
equivalent of app(1) and app(5) man pages. I tried putting app(1) in
manl (where all the other extra man pages were put) and app(5) in mann.
Well, previous to this escapade this system worked magically but now (using
the manl/mann system) if I do a 'man app' I get the app(5) page. This even
happens if I do 'man 1 app'
So what are the manl and mann directories for? I was hoping to keep all
the 'extra' man pages in a place other than the man[1-8] directories to
simplify my backup strategy.
There is nothing in any piece of documentation that I have the relates to
this problem. Any insight would be helpful!!
Thanks in advance,
--
Robert L. Howard (GTRI/STL/MSD) (404) 421-7165
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!rh26
Internet: rh26@prism.gatech.educhris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (07/18/89)
In article <1070@hydra.gatech.EDU> rh26@prism.gatech.EDU (Howard,Robert L) writes: [odd sort of first name, has a comma in it :-)] >What are the manl and mann directories under /usr/man for? (I understand >the structure of the man[1-8] directories) The system under consideration >is a Sun 386i running SunOS 4.0.1. The manual organisation in SunOS 2.*, 3.*, and 4.0.* is based on that in 4.2BSD. The scheme was as follows: /usr/man top level directory /man[1-8ln] n/troff source for manuals /cat[1-8ln] preformatted editions The `sections' 1-8, l, and n were for: 1 commands 2 system calls 3 library routines 4 devices (/dev) 5 file formats 6 games 7 miscellaneous 8 maintenance and administrative commands l local commands (/usr/local/*) n `new' commands (/usr/new/*) This scheme is not a particularly good one and is largely being abandoned. Besides the problem of separating the manual n/troff sources from the programs and files they document, its major failing is that it lumps `local' and `new' into single categories. What we here at UMCP CSD are using (which is not to say that Berkeley are doing quite the same thing%) is this: /usr/src/{bin,lib,...,man}/*... n/troff sources for manuals /usr/man/man[1-8] n/troff slaves /usr/man/cat[1-8] preformatted entries /usr/local/man/man[1-8] n/troff slaves for local things /usr/local/man/cat[1-8] preformatted entries (/usr/new does not fit, but /usr/new is an abomination. If it must exist, it should be called /usr/contrib, or something similar, and should be arranged like / (bin, lib, libdata, text, ...). ----- % In particular, Berkeley have eliminated /usr/man/man[1-8] and /etc/catman entirely. This makes printing a complete edition of the manuals somewhat difficult. . . . -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
hwt@bnr-public.uucp (Henry Troup) (07/18/89)
In article <1070@hydra.gatech.EDU> rh26@prism.gatech.EDU (Howard,Robert L) writes: >What are the manl and mann directories under /usr/man for? (I understand >the structure of the man[1-8] directories) The system under consideration >is a Sun 386i running SunOS 4.0.1. Entries in manl must be .l, not .1 ('dot-ell', not 'dot-one'). This is an oddity and hard to make out with some character sets. I'd assume that mann requires .n. utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!hwt%bnr-public | BNR is not | All that evil requires hwt@bnr (BITNET/NETNORTH) | responsible for | is that good men do (613) 765-2337 (Voice) | my opinions | nothing.
Leisner.Henr@xerox.com (Marty) (07/18/89)
I don't touch the /usr/man directories on my sun386i. My sun386i didn't come with much space left on the /usr partition anyway. I put locally installed stuff on /usr/local (where /usr/local is a symbolic link to /files/local) SunOS man supports the enviroment variable MANPATH which allows you to have multiple man directories. I just put local stuff in /usr/local/man/man[1-8]. I consider MANPATH to be a wonderful thing -- some versions of Unix don't seem to have it (some editions of Sys V don't even have man!!). I large releases with large numbers of manpages, don't even more the man pages, just add where the man pages are to your MANPATH. marty ARPA: leisner.henr@xerox.com GV: leisner.henr NS: leisner:wbst139:xerox UUCP: hplabs!arisia!leisner
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (08/16/89)
> /usr/man/man[1-8] n/troff slaves > /usr/man/cat[1-8] preformatted entries > /usr/local/man/man[1-8] n/troff slaves for local things > /usr/local/man/cat[1-8] preformatted entries Note that the 4.3BSD and SunOS 4.0 (and, I think, SunOS releases back to 3.x, probably 3.2; not having 4.2BSD source or man pages handy, I can't speak for it) commands have a MANPATH variable; you can set it to search "/usr/local/man/<directories>" before "/usr/man/<directories>". For example, I set mine to "~/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man" to first search through the man pages for private commands etc., then for local commands etc., then through the system man pages. I also prefer a scheme like the above to one with "manl" and "mann".