[comp.sys.sgi] man

meyer@claude.ifi.unizh.ch (Urs Meyer) (04/12/91)

There is a bug in /usr/bin/man in the mechanism that determines how a
man page should be processed.  It seems to reformat a man page, if there
is a .TH line somewhere at the beginning of the file.  Unfortunately, 
in rn.1 (Larry Wall's news reader), the .TH is as far as line 86 from
the beginning of the file.  The man program doesn't look that deep into 
a man page and prints it using cat which is rather uncomfortable to read.

Temporary fix: move the .TH line to the beginning of the man page.
Seems to work this way.

Urs Meyer

ciemo@bananapc.wpd.sgi.com (Dave Ciemiewicz) (04/15/91)

In article <1991Apr12.130601.1780@ifi.unizh.ch>, meyer@claude.ifi.unizh.ch (Urs Meyer) writes:
|> There is a bug in /usr/bin/man in the mechanism that determines how a
|> man page should be processed.  It seems to reformat a man page, if there
|> is a .TH line somewhere at the beginning of the file.  Unfortunately, 
|> in rn.1 (Larry Wall's news reader), the .TH is as far as line 86 from
|> the beginning of the file.  The man program doesn't look that deep into 
|> a man page and prints it using cat which is rather uncomfortable to read.
|> 
|> Temporary fix: move the .TH line to the beginning of the man page.
|> Seems to work this way.
|> 
|> Urs Meyer

Thanks for the note.  The problem is that the 3.3.x version of the man
command doesn't recognize the NROFF/TROFF comment style used on the rn.1.
This has been fixed in the upcoming major release.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

-- 

    __   * __   _  __  ___			
   /  \ / / /  / \/  \/   \		"Me brain hurts!"
  /    /  \/  /  /\  /    /			--- P.T. Gumby
  \___/\__/\_/  /_/ / \__/		
		   *