SOFPJF@VM.UOGUELPH.CA (Peter Jaspers-Fayer) (08/19/90)
Hello,
TN3270 (and others) have unformatted MAN pages (nroff format).
`man man` states that I need the 'Documentor's Workbench' before I
can use them in usr/local/catman/bla/bla... Humbug!! If I could
just format them once, pack them, and file them in the right place,
I could do man on them no problem. I did `man tn3270 > tn3270` on
a NeXT, packed the result (into a ...z file) on my Iris, and that
works OK, SO:
Neither man nor apropos say anything about *roff, other than deroff
which more clearly states that I need the workbench before I can
nroff anything. Finaly, the question: Surely a public-domain nroff
exists out there somewhere? I have scanned indexes for comp.sources.
unix and other places to no avail. Has anyone seen same somewhere?
Better yet, has anyone seen a PD Irix port of nroff? Surely I'm not
the first one to ask?
/PJ SofPJF@VM.UoGuelph.Ca
(Probably also reachable (until ?) at SOFPJF@UOGUELPH.BITNET)
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.ciemo@bananaPC.wpd.sgi.com (Dave Ciemiewicz) (08/21/90)
In article <9008191125.aa19008@VGR.BRL.MIL>, SOFPJF@VM.UOGUELPH.CA (Peter Jaspers-Fayer) writes: > Hello, > TN3270 (and others) have unformatted MAN pages (nroff format). > `man man` states that I need the 'Documentor's Workbench' before I > can use them in usr/local/catman/bla/bla... Humbug!! If I could > just format them once, pack them, and file them in the right place, > I could do man on them no problem. I did `man tn3270 > tn3270` on > a NeXT, packed the result (into a ...z file) on my Iris, and that > works OK, SO: > > Neither man nor apropos say anything about *roff, other than deroff > which more clearly states that I need the workbench before I can > nroff anything. What release are you using? The 3.2 and 3.3 releases of the man(1) manual page contains the following: ... locally added manual entries may be pre-formatted "cat" manual entries in /usr/catman/local/cat[1- 8lnop] or may be unformatted nroff(1) source manual entries in /usr/catman/local/man[1-8lnop]. The unformatted manual entries will be processed by neqn(1), tbl(1), nroff(1), and col(1). (The Documentor's Work Bench software option is required to process unformatted manual pages.) The Documentor's Work Bench option contains the programs neqn, tbl, and nroff referred to in this passage. It seems to me that a very explicit reference to nroff has been made. A reference to nroff is also made in the "SEE ALSO" section of the man(1) manual page. Though it may be inferred from the last two sentences that the Documentor's Work Bench is the software option which contains the needed tools, you are correct that the containment is not explicit. This will be remedied. As for the Documentor's Work Bench requirement for unformatted manual pages, it is still very true. If you want to put unformatted manual pages on your IRIS and have the man command on the IRIS format them, you must have nroff on that IRIS which implies that you must have the Documentor's Work Bench on that IRIS. This is true if you want a solution from Silicon Graphics. If you format your manual pages on another system and place them in the manual page tree on the IRIS, you can get around the requirement of having nroff, as you did. However, you have placed "formatted" manual pages in the tree, not "unformatted" manual pages. Whether we, you, or some other agent formats them is irrelevant. The best you can fault the manual page for is not detailing how to format manual pages on another IRIS for installation on systems which do not have the Documentor's Work Bench. This too will be remedied. --- Ciemo
mccalpin@perelandra.cms.udel.edu (John D. McCalpin) (08/21/90)
>>>>> On 20 Aug 90 17:05:10 GMT, ciemo@bananaPC.wpd.sgi.com (Dave Ciemiewicz) said: > As for the Documentor's Work Bench requirement for unformatted manual pages, > it is still very true. If you want to put unformatted manual pages on your > IRIS and have the man command on the IRIS format them, you must have nroff on > that IRIS which implies that you must have the Documentor's Work Bench on > that IRIS. This is true if you want a solution from Silicon Graphics. Another option is groff (GNU roff) from the Free Software Foundation. It requires g++ in order to compile, which in turn requires gcc. I am still at the second stage (installing g++), so I can't vouch for how well groff works. It is supposed to replace nroff, troff, and psroff.... -- John D. McCalpin mccalpin@perelandra.cms.udel.edu Assistant Professor mccalpin@vax1.udel.edu College of Marine Studies, U. Del. J.MCCALPIN/OMNET