1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)man.conf.5 8.5 (Berkeley) 01/02/94 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt MAN.CONF 5 10.Os 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm man.conf 13.Nd configuration file for 14.Xr man 1 15.Sh DESCRIPTION 16The 17.Xr man 1 , 18.Xr apropos 1 , 19and 20.Xr whatis 1 21commands 22search for manual pages or their database files as specified by the 23.Nm man.conf 24file. 25Manual pages are normally expected to be preformatted (see 26.Xr nroff 1 ) 27and named with a trailing ``.0''. 28.Pp 29The 30.Nm man.conf 31file contains two types of lines. 32.Pp 33The first type of line is a ``section'' line, which contains a 34section name followed by one or more directory paths. 35The directory paths may contain the normal shell globbing characters, 36including curly braces (``{}''); to escape a shell globbing character, 37precede it with a backslash (``\e''). 38Lines in this format specify that manual pages for the section 39may be found in the following directories. 40.Pp 41Directories named with a trailing slash character (``/'') are expected 42to contain subdirectories of manual pages, (see the keyword ``_subdir'' 43below) instead of manual pages. 44These subdirectories are searched instead of the directory. 45.Pp 46Before searching any directory for a manual page, the 47.Xr man 1 48command always searches the subdirectory with the same name 49as the current machine type, if it exists. 50No specification of these subdirectories is necessary in the 51.Nm man.conf 52file. 53.Pp 54Section names are unrestricted except for the reserved words specified 55below; in general, you should avoid anything with a leading underscore 56(``_'') to avoid future incompatibilities. 57.Pp 58The section named ``_default'' is the list of directories that will 59be searched if no section is specified by the user. 60.Pp 61The second type of line is preceded with a ``keyword''. 62The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows: 63.Pp 64.Bl -tag -width "_version" 65.It _build 66Man file names, regardless of their format, are expected to end in 67a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix. 68The first field of a _build line lists a suffix which indicates 69files which need to be reformated or manipulated in some way before 70being displayed to the user. 71The suffix may contain the normal shell globbing characters (NOT 72including curly braces (``{}'')). 73The rest of the line must be a shell command line, the standard 74output of which is the manual page in a format which may be directly 75displayed to the user. 76Any occurrences of the string ``%s'' in the shell command line will 77be replaced by the name of the file which is being reformatted. 78.It _subdir 79The list (in search order) of subdirectories which will be searched in 80any directory named with a trailing slash (``/'') character. 81This list is also used when a path is specified to the 82.Xr man 1 83utility by the user, using the 84.Ev MANPATH 85environment variable or the 86.Fl M 87and 88.Fl m 89options. 90.It _suffix 91Man file names, regardless of their format are expected to end in 92a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix. 93Each field of a _suffix line is a suffix which indicates 94files which do not need to be reformatted or manipulated 95in any way, but which may be directly displayed to the user. 96Each suffix may contain the normal shell globbing characters (NOT 97including curly braces (``{}'')). 98.It _version 99The version of the configuration file. 100.It _whatdb 101The full pathname (not just a directory path) for a database to be used 102by the 103.Xr apropos 1 104and 105.Xr whatis 1 106commands. 107.El 108.Pp 109Multiple specifications for all types of lines are cumulative and the 110entries are used in the order listed in the file; multiple entries may 111be listed per line, as well. 112.Pp 113Empty lines or lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash 114mark (``#'') are ignored. 115.Sh EXAMPLES 116Given the following 117.Nm man.conf 118file: 119.Bd -literal -offset indent 120_version BSD.2 121_subdir cat[123] 122_suffix .0 123_build .[1-9] nroff -man %s 124_build .tbl tbl %s | nroff -man 125_default /usr/share/man/ 126sect3 /usr/share/man/{old/,}cat3 127.Ed 128.Pp 129By default, the command 130.Dq Li man mktemp 131will search for 132``mktemp.<any_digit>'' and ``mktemp.tbl'' 133in the directories 134.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat1 , 135.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat2 , 136and 137.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat3 . 138If on a machine of type ``vax'', the subdirectory ``vax'' in each 139directory would be searched as well, before the directory was 140searched. 141.Pp 142If ``mktemp.tbl'' was found first, the command 143.Dq Li tbl <manual page> | nroff -man 144would be run to build a man page for display to the user. 145.Pp 146The command 147.Dq Li man sect3 mktemp 148would search the directories 149.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/old/cat3 150and 151.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat3 , 152in that order, for 153the mktemp manual page. 154If a subdirectory with the same name as the current machine type 155existed in any of them, it would be searched as well, before each 156of them were searched. 157.Sh FILES 158.Bl -tag -width /etc/man.conf -compact 159.It Pa /etc/man.conf 160Standard manual directory search path. 161.El 162.Sh SEE ALSO 163.Xr apropos 1 , 164.Xr machine 1 , 165.Xr man 1 , 166.Xr whatis 1 , 167.Xr whereis 1 , 168.Xr fnmatch 3 , 169.Xr glob 3 170