NAME

catman − create the cat files for the manual

SYNOPSIS

/etc/catman [ −p ] [ −n ] [ −w ] [ −M path ] [ sections ]

DESCRIPTION

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  Each manual page is examined and those whose preformatted versions are missing or out of date are recreated.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 path By default, catman(8) updates manual pages located in the set of directories indicated by a environment variable LANG (e.g. /usr/man/ja_JP.SJIS).  But the directory does not exist, catman(8)updatesmanualpageslocated 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, a string appended the string of LANG to its value is used for the default path.  For example, if LANG is ja_JP.SJIS, catman(8) updates manual pages located in /usr/local/man/ja_JP.SJIS and /usr/man/ja_JP.SJIS. When the directories do not exist, manual pages located in /usr/local/man and /usr/man are updated.

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;
 

FILES

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

SEE ALSO

man(1), cron(8), rdist(1), setlocale(3)

BUGS

To reformat English manuals, set LANG to C To reformat Japanese EUC manuals, set LANG to ja_JP.EUC and execute catman(8)

When LANG is ja_JP.EUC and a directory of /usr/ma/ja_JP.EUC does not exist, manuals located in /usr/man are updated.  This is not what the user expects.  Mkmaneuc(8) makes /usr/man/ja_JP.EUC from /usr/man/ja_JP.SJIS automatically.

Acts oddly on nights with full moons. 

NEWS-OSRelease 4.1C