date and time created 90/06/28 18:04:27 by mckusick

[unix-history] / usr / src / usr.bin / man / man.conf.5

.\" Copyright (c) 1989 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\"
.\"	@(#)man.conf.5	5.4 (Berkeley) %G%
.\"
.TH MAN.CONF 5 ""
.SH NAME
man.conf \- man command's configuration file
.SH DESCRIPTION
.IR Man (1),
.IR apropos (1),
and
.IR whatis (1)
search for manual pages or their database files as specified by the
.I man.conf
file.
Manual pages are expected to be preformatted (see
.IR nroff (1))
and named with a trailing ``.0''.
.PP
The
.I man.conf
file contains two types of lines.
.PP
The first type of line is a ``section'' line, which contains a
section name followed by a directory path.
Lines in this format specify that manual pages for the section
may be found in the directory.
.PP
Directories named with a trailing slash character (``/'') are expected
to contain subdirectories (see the keyword ``_subdir'' below) instead
of manual pages.
These subdirectories are searched instead of the directory.
.PP
All directories (either explicitly specified or named with a trailing
slash) may contain subdirectories.
.IR Man (1)
automatically searches any subdirectory with the same name as the
current machine type before the directory is searched.
No specification of these subdirectories is necessary in the
.I man.conf
file.
.PP
Section names are unrestricted except for the reserved words specified
below; in general, however, it is best to avoid anything beginning with
an underscore (``_'') in order to avoid future incompatibilities.
.PP
The section named ``_default'' is the list of directories to be
searched if no section is specified.
.PP
The second type of line is preceded with a ``keyword''.
The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows:
.sp
.TP
_subdir
The list (in search order) of subdirectories which will be searched in
any directory named with a trailing slash (``/'') character.
.TP
_version
The version of the configuration file.
.TP
_whatdb
The full pathname (not just a directory path) for a database to be used
by the
.IR apropos (1)
and
.IR whatis (1)
commands.
.PP
Multiple specifications for all types of lines (except for ``_version'')
are cumulative and the entries are used in the order listed in the file;
multiple entries may be listed per line, as well.
.PP
Empty lines or lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash
mark (``#'') are ignored.
.SH EXAMPLES
Given the following
.I man.conf file:
.sp
.nf
.RS
_version		BSD.1
_subdir		cat1 cat2 cat3
_default		/usr/share/man/
sect3		/usr/share/man/cat3
.fi
.RE
.sp
The default
.IR mktemp (3)
manual page should be stored in ``/usr/share/man/cat3/mktemp.0''.
Any VAX architecture specific version of it should be stored in
``cat3/vax/mktemp.0''.
.PP
The command ``man mktemp'' would search the subdirectories ``cat1''
``cat2'', and ``cat3'', in ``/usr/share/man'', in that order, for
``mktemp.0''.
If a subdirectory with the same name as the current machine type
existed in any of them, it would be searched as well.
.PP
The command ``man sect3 mktemp'' would only search ``/usr/share/man/cat3''
and any possible per machine subdirectory.
.SH FILES
/etc/man.conf	standard manual directory search path
.SH "SEE ALSO"
apropos(1), machine(1), man(1), whatis(1), whereis(1)