Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       manpath - format of the /etc/manpath.config file

DESCRIPTION

       The  manpath configuration file is used by the manual page utilities to
       assess users' manpaths at run  time,  to  indicate  which  manual  page
       hierarchies  (manpaths)  are to be treated as system hierarchies and to
       assign them directories to be used for storing cat files.

       If the environment variable $MANPATH is already  set,  the  information
       contained within /etc/manpath.config will not override it.

FORMAT

       The following field types are currently recognised:

       # comment
              Blank  lines  or  those  beginning  with  a # will be treated as
              comments and ignored.

       MANDATORY_MANPATH manpath_element
              Lines of this form indicate manpaths  that  every  automatically
              generated  $MANPATH should contain.  This will typically include
              /usr/man.

       MANPATH_MAP path_element manpath_element
              Lines of this form set up $PATH to $MANPATH mappings.  For  each
              path_element  found in the user's $PATH, manpath_element will be
              added to the $MANPATH.

       MANDB_MAP manpath_element [ catpath_element ]
              Lines of this form indicate which manpaths are to be treated  as
              system  manpaths, and optionally where their cat files should be
              stored.  This field type is particularly important if man  is  a
              setuid  program,  as  (when  in  the  system  configuration file
              /etc/manpath.config rather than the per-user configuration  file
              .manpath)  it  indicates which manual page hierarchies to access
              as the setuid user and which as the invoking user.

              The system manual page  hierarchies  are  usually  those  stored
              under  /usr such as /usr/man, /usr/local/man and /usr/X11R6/man.

              If cat pages from a particular manpath_element  are  not  to  be
              stored  or  are  to  be  stored  in  the  traditional  location,
              catpath_element may be omitted.

              Traditional cat placement would  be  impossible  for  read  only
              mounted  manual  page  hierarchies  and  because  of  this it is
              possible to specify any  valid  directory  hierarchy  for  their
              storage.  To observe the Linux FSSTND the keyword `FSSTND can be
              used in place of an actual directory.

              Unfortunately, it is necessary to specify all  system  man  tree
              paths,  including  alternate  operating  system  paths  such  as
              /usr/man/sun   and   any    NLS    locale    paths    such    as
              /usr/man/de_DE.88591.

              As  the information is parsed line by line in the order written,
              it is necessary for any  manpath  that  is  a  sub-hierarchy  of
              another  hierarchy  to  be  listed first, otherwise an incorrect
              match will be made.  An  example  is  that  /usr/man/de_DE.88591
              must come before /usr/man.

       DEFINE key value
              Lines of this form define miscellaneous configuration variables;
              see the default configuration file for those variables  used  by
              the  manual  pager  utilities.   They  include  default paths to
              various programs (such as grep and tbl),  and  default  sets  of
              arguments to those programs.

       SECTION section ...
              Lines  of  this  form  define the order in which manual sections
              should be searched.  If there are no SECTION directives  in  the
              configuration file, the default is:

                     SECTION 1 n l 8 3 0 2 5 4 9 6 7

              If  multiple  SECTION  directives are given, their section lists
              will be concatenated.

              If a particular extension is not in this list (say, 1mh) it will
              be  displayed  with  the rest of the section it belongs to.  The
              effect of  this  is  that  you  only  need  to  explicitly  list
              extensions  if  you  want to force a particular order.  Sections
              with extensions should usually be adjacent to their main section
              (e.g. "1 1mh 8 ...").

              SECTIONS  is accepted as an alternative name for this directive.

       MINCATWIDTH width
              If the terminal width is less than width, cat pages will not  be
              created (if missing) or displayed.  The default is 80.

       MAXCATWIDTH width
              If  the terminal width is greater than width, cat pages will not
              be created (if missing) or displayed.  The default is 80.

       CATWIDTH width
              If width is non-zero, cat pages will always be formatted  for  a
              terminal  of  the  given  width,  regardless of the width of the
              terminal actually being used.  This should generally  be  within
              the range set by MINCATWIDTH and MAXCATWIDTH.

       NOCACHE
              This flag prevents man(1) from creating cat pages automatically.

BUGS

       Unless the rules above are followed and observed precisely, the  manual
       pager  utilities  will  not  function as desired.  The rules are overly
       complicated.