dmcanzi@watshine.waterloo.edu (David Canzi) (09/08/89)
In article <16261@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jmsellens@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John M. Sellens) writes: >If you don't read the system news, and you don't use showpath or >searchpath, we can't help you. The relevant article in system_news is no longer available. Observe the following little experiment: First, I start with a typical path, as it might be set by a user who doesn't know about showpath... 1/1 watdcsu % echo $path /u2/dmcanzi/bin /usr/ucb /bin /usr/bin 1/2 watdcsu % man showpath man: No entry for showpath in the manual. Then I use showpath... 1/3 watdcsu % setenv PATH `showpath usedby=user standard` 1/4 watdcsu % man showpath SHOWPATH(1) User Commands SHOWPATH(1) Name: SHOWPATH - Display and format the names of various search paths. ... etc. In order to find out how to use showpath, you have to use MFCF's modified man command. In order to get access to MFCF's modified man command, you have to use showpath. -- David Canzi "All my life's a circle." -- Harry Chapin
jmsellens@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John M. Sellens) (09/08/89)
For the past several years, accounts created on MFCF machines and/or those created with the mkusers command have been provided with .cshrc/.login/.profile files that use searchpath and that call read_system_news. These files also contain a warning that they shouldn't be changed before reading the relevant man page, which explains why searchpath and read_system_news are important.
dmcanzi@watshine.waterloo.edu (David Canzi) (09/11/89)
In article <16285@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jmsellens@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John M. Sellens) writes: > >For the past several years, accounts created on MFCF machines and/or >those created with the mkusers command have been provided with >.cshrc/.login/.profile files that use searchpath and that call >read_system_news. These files also contain a warning that they >shouldn't be changed before reading the relevant man page, which >explains why searchpath and read_system_news are important. In other words, if a user gets into trouble, tough noogies. He should have *obeyed*. Why not just make the showpath manual page available to the ordinary man command, as has been done already with the .cshrc man page? Perhaps, as a general principle, if MFCF installs a locally created command in a standard directory (ie. /bin), then the man page should be installed in a standard directory (ie. /usr/man/man1) too. -- David Canzi
jmsellens@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John M. Sellens) (09/11/89)
In article <499@shine22.watshine.waterloo.edu> dmcanzi@watshine.waterloo.edu (David Canzi) writes: >In other words, if a user gets into trouble, tough noogies. He should >have *obeyed*. We don't mean it like that. It's just that in order to use MFCF commands, you essentially must use either searchpath or showpath to set your path. Things change from time to time and we need some way to notify users, so if they don't read the news, we can't tell them that things are changing and they will end up in trouble. We're trying to say "do it this way, or you'll have trouble", people don't do it that way, and then they are surprised when they end up in trouble. I don't see a way around these problems, but if anyone has any ideas, we'd be glad to hear them. >Why not just make the showpath manual page available to the ordinary >man command, as has been done already with the .cshrc man page? There are lots of historical leftovers that we have added to standard directories. The .cshrc man page is but one of them. New systems (e.g. Sun OS 4.0, Dynix, MIPS) don't have any local additions to standard man directories, and as few as possible to other standard directories. >Perhaps, as a general principle, if MFCF installs a locally created >command in a standard directory (ie. /bin), then the man page should be >installed in a standard directory (ie. /usr/man/man1) too. Makes sense to me.