MAN.CONF(5) BSD Programmer's Manual MAN.CONF(5)NAMEman.conf - configuration file for man(1)DESCRIPTION
The man(1), apropos(1), and whatis(1) commands search for manual pages
or their database files as specified by the man.conf file. Manual pages
are normally expected to be preformatted (see nroff(1)) and named with a
trailing ``.0''.
The man.conf file contains several types of lines: sections, trees and
keywords.
A ``section'' line contains a section name followed by one or more subdi-
rectory paths. The subdirectory paths may contain the normal shell glob-
bing characters, including curly braces (``{}''); to escape a shell glob-
bing character, precede it with a backslash (``\''). Lines in this for-
mat specify that manual pages for the section may be found in the follow-
ing subdirectories. A section line is used in place of the ``_subdir''
line. Sections do not start with the slash character (``/'').
A ``tree'' line contains a directory to search. Just as with sections,
the normal shell globbing characters may be used. Directories named with
a trailing slash character (``/'') are expected to contain subdirectories
of manual pages, (see the keyword ``_subdir'' below) instead of manual
pages. These subdirectories are searched instead of the directory.
Before searching any directory for a manual page, the man(1) command al-
ways searches the subdirectory with the same name as the current machine
type, if it exists. No specification of these subdirectories is neces-
sary in the man.conf file.
Section and tree names are unrestricted except for the reserved words
specified below; in general, you should avoid anything with a leading un-
derscore (``_'') to avoid future incompatibilities.
The tree named ``_default'' is the list of directories that will be
searched if not overridden by the user in the man(1) utility.
A ``keyword'' line contains a keyword followed by its value. The possi-
ble keywords and their meanings are as follows:
_build Man file names, regardless of their format, are expected to end
in a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix. The
first field of a _build line lists a suffix which indicates
files which need to be reformatted or manipulated in some way
before being displayed to the user. The suffix may contain the
normal shell globbing characters (NOT including curly braces
(``{}'')). The rest of the line must be a shell command line,
the standard output of which is the manual page in a format
which may be directly displayed to the user. Any occurrences
of the string ``%s'' in the shell command line will be replaced
by the name of the file which is being reformatted.
_subdir The list (in search order) of subdirectories which will be
searched in any directory named with a trailing slash (``/'')
character. The ``_subdir'' list is not used if the user speci-
fies a section to the man(1) utility. This list is also used
when a path is specified to the man(1) utility by the user, us-
ing the MANPATH environment variable or the -M and -m options.
_suffix Man file names, regardless of their format are expected to end
in a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix.
Each field of a _suffix line is a suffix which indicates files
which do not need to be reformatted or manipulated in any way,
but which may be directly displayed to the user. Each suffix
may contain the normal shell globbing characters (NOT including
curly braces (``{}'')).
_version The version of the configuration file.
_whatdb The full pathname (not just a directory path) for a database to
be used by the apropos(1) and whatis(1) commands.
Multiple specifications for all types of lines are cumulative and the en-
tries are used in the order listed in the file; multiple entries may be
listed per line, as well.
Empty lines or lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash mark
(``#'') are ignored.
EXAMPLES
Given the following man.conf file:
_version BSD.2
_subdir cat[123]
_suffix .0
_build .[1-9] nroff -man %s
_build .tbl tbl %s | nroff -man
_default /usr/share/man/
sect3 {old/,}cat3
By default, the command ``man mktemp'' will search for ``mktemp.<any_dig-
it>'' and ``mktemp.tbl'' in the directories ``/usr/share/man/cat1'',
``/usr/share/man/cat2'', and ``/usr/share/man/cat3''. If on a machine of
type ``vax'', the subdirectory ``vax'' in each directory would be
searched as well, before the directory was searched.
If ``mktemp.tbl'' was found first, the command ``tbl <manual page> nroff
-man'' would be run to build a man page for display to the user.
The command ``man sect3 mktemp'' would search the directories
``/usr/share/man/old/cat3'' and ``/usr/share/man/cat3'', in that order,
for the mktemp manual page. If a subdirectory with the same name as the
current machine type existed in any of them, it would be searched as
well, before each of them were searched.
FILES
/etc/man.conf Standard manual directory search path.
SEE ALSOapropos(1), man(1), uname(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), fnmatch(3),
glob(3)BSDI BSD/OS January 2, 1994 2
