catman(1M)
NAME
catman − create the cat files for the manual
SYNOPSIS
/etc/catman [−p] [−m] [−n] [−w] [−z] [sections]
DESCRIPTION
catman creates the formatted versions of the online manual from nroff(1)-compatible source files. Each manual entry in the man∗.Z and man∗ directories is examined, and those whose formatted versions are missing or out-of-date are recreated. catman formats the most recent of the entries, compresses it, and puts it into the appropriate cat∗.Z directory.
If any changes are made, catman recreates the /usr/lib/whatis database. By default, the /usr/lib/whatis database is overwritten. If the MANPATH environment varialbe is set to a non-default set of paths, the old database file is saved in /usr/lib/whatis.old so that, if desired, the system administrator may merge them together.
By default, catman searches the man∗.Z and man∗ subdirectories under directory paths /usr/man, /usr/contrib/man, and /usr/local/man. If MANPATH is set in the environment, the directories given in MANPATH are checked instead of the default. See environ(5) for a description of the MANPATH environment variable.
Before running catman, remove any existing cat∗ directories. If the −z option is used, cat∗.Z directories should be removed instead. If both cat∗.Z and cat∗ directories exist, man(1) updates both directories and more space is used.
Any command-line parameters not starting with − are interpreted as a list of manual sections (directories) to search. For example:
catman 123
restricts updating to manual sections 1, 2, and 3 (directories man1, man2, and man3).
Options
−m Create a merged /usr/lib/whatis database; i.e., information on new manual entries (added since the last time catman was run) is merged into the current database rather that overwriting it. Ignored if selected with the −n option.
−n Prevents creation of /usr/lib/whatis.
−p Prints what would be done instead of doing it.
−w Causes only the /usr/lib/whatis database to be created. No manual reformatting is done.
−z Puts the formatted entries in the cat∗ directories rather than in the cat∗.Z directories.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
MANPATH defines parent directories to be used when searching man∗ and man∗.Z directories.
WARNINGS
If unformatted manual entries (those in the ../man? subdirectories) have been removed since the last time catman was run, information in the /usr/lib/whatis database may be lost. The −m option may be used to override this, but may result in repeated lines in the database for the same manual entry.
AUTHOR
catman was developed by HP and the University of California, Berkeley.
FILES
/usr/man/man∗[.Z]/∗ unformatted (nroff(1)-compatible source) manual entry files [compressed]
/usr/man/cat∗[.Z]/∗ formatted manual pages [compressed]
/usr/local/man/man∗[.Z]/∗
/usr/local/man/cat∗[.Z]/∗
/usr/contrib/man/man∗[.Z]/∗
/usr/contrib/man/cat∗[.Z]/∗
/usr/lib/mkwhatis commands to make whatis database
SEE ALSO
man(1), compress(1), fixman(1), environ(5).
Hewlett-Packard Company — HP-UX Release 9.0: August 1992