1.\" $NetBSD: man.conf.5,v 1.14 2002/03/08 22:18:04 wiz Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991, 1993 4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 8.\" are met: 9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 13.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 14.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 15.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 16.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 17.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 18.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 19.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 20.\" without specific prior written permission. 21.\" 22.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 23.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 24.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 25.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 26.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 27.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 28.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 29.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 30.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 31.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 32.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 33.\" 34.\" @(#)man.conf.5 8.5 (Berkeley) 1/2/94 35.\" 36.Dd June 26, 2001 37.Dt MAN.CONF 5 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm man.conf 41.Nd configuration file for 42.Xr man 1 43.Sh DESCRIPTION 44The 45.Xr man 1 , 46.Xr apropos 1 , 47.Xr whatis 1 48and 49.Xr makewhatis 8 50commands 51search for manual pages or their database files as specified by the 52.Nm 53file. 54Manual pages are normally expected to be preformatted (see 55.Xr nroff 1 ) 56and named with a trailing ``.0''. 57.Pp 58The 59.Nm 60file contains two types of lines. 61.Pp 62The first type of line is a ``section'' line, which contains a 63section name followed by one or more directory paths. 64The directory paths may contain the normal shell globbing characters, 65including curly braces (``{}''); to escape a shell globbing character, 66precede it with a backslash (``\e''). 67Lines in this format specify that manual pages for the section 68may be found in the following directories. 69.Pp 70Section lines may contain either absolute directory paths or relative 71directory paths (but not both). Relative directory paths are treated 72as a list of subdirectories to append to the current directory search 73path. Section lines with absolute directory paths (starting with 74``/'') completely replace the current directory search path with their 75content. Absolute directory paths named with a trailing slash 76character are expected to contain subdirectories of manual pages, (see 77the keyword ``_subdir'' below) instead of man pages. These 78subdirectories are searched instead of the directory. 79.Pp 80Before searching any directory for a manual page, the 81.Xr man 1 82command always searches the subdirectory with the same name 83as the current machine type, if it exists. 84No specification of these subdirectories is necessary in the 85.Nm 86file. 87.Pp 88Section names are unrestricted except for the reserved words specified 89below; in general, you should avoid anything with a leading underscore 90(``_'') to avoid future incompatibilities. 91.Pp 92The section named ``_default'' is the list of directories that will 93be searched if no section is specified by the user. 94.Pp 95The second type of line is preceded with a ``keyword''. 96The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows: 97.Pp 98.Bl -tag -width "_version" 99.It _build 100Man file names, regardless of their format, are expected to end in 101a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix. 102The first field of a _build line lists a suffix which indicates 103files which need to be reformatted or manipulated in some way before 104being displayed to the user. 105The suffix may contain the normal shell globbing characters (NOT 106including curly braces (``{}'')). 107The rest of the line must be a shell command line, the standard 108output of which is the manual page in a format which may be directly 109displayed to the user. 110Any occurrences of the string ``%s'' in the shell command line will 111be replaced by the name of the file which is being reformatted. 112.It _crunch 113The ``_crunch'' section is used by catman to know how to crunch cat pages 114which originally were compressed man pages: The first field lists a suffix 115which indicates what kind of compression were used to compress the man page. 116The rest of the line must be a shell command line, used to compress the 117formatted pages. 118.It _subdir 119The list (in search order) of subdirectories which will be searched in 120any directory named with a trailing slash (``/'') character. 121This list is also used when a path is specified to the 122.Xr man 1 123utility by the user, using the 124.Ev MANPATH 125environment variable or the 126.Fl M 127and 128.Fl m 129options. 130.It _suffix 131Man file names, regardless of their format are expected to end in 132a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix. 133Each field of a _suffix line is a suffix which indicates 134files which do not need to be reformatted or manipulated 135in any way, but which may be directly displayed to the user. 136Each suffix may contain the normal shell globbing characters (NOT 137including curly braces (``{}'')). 138.It _version 139The version of the configuration file. 140.It _whatdb 141The full pathname (not just a directory path) for a database to be used 142by the 143.Xr apropos 1 144and 145.Xr whatis 1 146commands. 147The pathname may contain the normal shell globbing characters, 148including curly braces (``{}''); to escape a shell globbing character, 149precede it with a backslash (``\e''). 150.El 151.Pp 152Multiple specifications for all types of lines are cumulative and the 153entries are used in the order listed in the file; multiple entries may 154be listed per line, as well. 155.Pp 156Empty lines or lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash 157mark (``#'') are ignored. 158.Sh FILES 159.Bl -tag -width /etc/man.conf -compact 160.It Pa /etc/man.conf 161Standard manual directory search path. 162.El 163.Sh EXAMPLES 164Given the following 165.Nm 166file: 167.Bd -literal -offset indent 168_version BSD.2 169_subdir cat[123] 170_suffix .0 171_build .[1-9] nroff -man %s 172_build .tbl tbl %s | nroff -man 173_default /usr/share/man/ 174sect3 /usr/share/man/{old/,}cat3 175.Ed 176.Pp 177By default, the command 178.Dq Li man mktemp 179will search for 180``mktemp.\*[Lt]any_digit\*[Gt]'' and ``mktemp.tbl'' 181in the directories 182.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat1 , 183.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat2 , 184and 185.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat3 . 186If on a machine of type ``vax'', the subdirectory ``vax'' in each 187directory would be searched as well, before the directory was 188searched. 189.Pp 190If ``mktemp.tbl'' was found first, the command 191.Dq Li tbl \*[Lt]manual page\*[Gt] | nroff -man 192would be run to build a man page for display to the user. 193.Pp 194The command 195.Dq Li man sect3 mktemp 196would search the directories 197.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/old/cat3 198and 199.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat3 , 200in that order, for 201the mktemp manual page. 202If a subdirectory with the same name as the current machine type 203existed in any of them, it would be searched as well, before each 204of them were searched. 205.Sh SEE ALSO 206.Xr apropos 1 , 207.Xr machine 1 , 208.Xr man 1 , 209.Xr whatis 1 , 210.Xr whereis 1 , 211.Xr fnmatch 3 , 212.Xr glob 3 , 213.Xr makewhatis 8 214