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@(#)catman.8 6.5 (Berkeley) 05/28/86
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 123will 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 updates manual pages located in the set of directories specified by path (/usr/man by default). Path has the form of a colon (`:') separated list of directory names, for example `/usr/local/man:/usr/man'. If the environment variable `MANPATH' is set, its value is used for the default path.
If the nroff source file contains only a line of the form `.so manx/yyy.x', a symbolic link is made in the catx directory to the appropriate preformatted manual page. This feature allows easy distribution of the preformatted manual pages among a group of associated machines with rdist(1). The nroff sources need not be distributed to all machines, thus saving the associated disk space. As an example, consider a local network with 5 machines, called mach1 through mach5. Suppose mach3 has the manual page nroff sources. Every night, mach3 runs catman via cron(8) and later runs rdist with a distfile that looks like:
MANSLAVES = ( mach1 mach2 mach4 mach5 ) MANUALS = (/usr/man/cat[1-8no] /usr/man/whatis) ${MANUALS} -> ${MANSLAVES} install -R; notify root;
/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