Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.

@(#)catman.8 6.1 (Berkeley) 04/27/85

C 4 catman - create the cat files for the manual /etc/catman [ -p ] [ -n ] [ -w ] [ -M directory ] [ sections ] Catman creates the preformatted versions of the on-line manual from the nroff input files. Each manual page is examined and those whose preformatted versions are missing or out of date are recreated. If any changes are made, catman will recreate the whatis database.

If there is one parameter not starting with a `-', it is taken to be a list of manual sections to look in. For example

catman 123

will cause the updating to only happen to manual sections 1, 2, and 3.

Options:

-n prevents creations of the whatis database.

-p prints what would be done instead of doing it.

-w causes only the whatis database to be created. No manual reformatting is done.

-M update manual pages located in the specified directory (/usr/man by default).

/usr/man default manual directory location
/usr/man/man?/*.* raw (nroff input) manual sections
/usr/man/cat?/*.* preformatted manual pages
/usr/man/whatis whatis database
/usr/lib/makewhatis command script to make whatis database

man(1) Acts oddly on nights with full moons.