xref: /freebsd/contrib/mandoc/makewhatis.8 (revision cfd6422a5217410fbd66f7a7a8a64d9d85e61229)
1.\"	$Id: makewhatis.8,v 1.6 2017/05/17 22:27:12 schwarze Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 2011, 2012 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
4.\" Copyright (c) 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
5.\"
6.\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
7.\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
8.\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
9.\"
10.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
11.\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
12.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
13.\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
14.\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
15.\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
16.\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
17.\"
18.Dd $Mdocdate: May 17 2017 $
19.Dt MAKEWHATIS 8
20.Os
21.Sh NAME
22.Nm makewhatis
23.Nd index UNIX manuals
24.Sh SYNOPSIS
25.Nm
26.Op Fl aDnpQ
27.Op Fl T Cm utf8
28.Op Fl C Ar file
29.Nm
30.Op Fl aDnpQ
31.Op Fl T Cm utf8
32.Ar dir ...
33.Nm
34.Op Fl DnpQ
35.Op Fl T Cm utf8
36.Fl d Ar dir
37.Op Ar
38.Nm
39.Op Fl Dnp
40.Op Fl T Cm utf8
41.Fl u Ar dir
42.Op Ar
43.Nm
44.Op Fl DQ
45.Fl t Ar
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Nm
49utility extracts keywords from
50.Ux
51manuals and indexes them in a database for fast retrieval by
52.Xr apropos 1 ,
53.Xr whatis 1 ,
54and
55.Xr man 1 Ns 's
56.Fl k
57option.
58.Pp
59By default,
60.Nm
61creates a database in each
62.Ar dir
63using the files
64.Sm off
65.Sy man Ar section Li /
66.Op Ar arch Li /
67.Ar title . section
68.Sm on
69and
70.Sm off
71.Sy cat Ar section Li /
72.Op Ar arch Li /
73.Ar title . Sy 0
74.Sm on
75in that directory.
76Existing databases are replaced.
77If a directory contains no manual pages, no database is created in that
78directory.
79If
80.Ar dir
81is not provided,
82.Nm
83uses the default paths stipulated by
84.Xr man.conf 5 .
85.Pp
86The arguments are as follows:
87.Bl -tag -width "-C file"
88.It Fl a
89Use all directories and files found below
90.Ar dir ... .
91.It Fl C Ar file
92Specify an alternative configuration
93.Ar file
94in
95.Xr man.conf 5
96format.
97.It Fl D
98Display all files added or removed to the index.
99With a second
100.Fl D ,
101also show all keywords added for each file.
102.It Fl d Ar dir
103Merge (remove and re-add)
104.Ar
105to the database in
106.Ar dir .
107.It Fl n
108Do not create or modify any database; scan and parse only,
109and print manual page names and descriptions to standard output.
110.It Fl p
111Print warnings about potential problems with manual pages
112to the standard error output.
113.It Fl Q
114Quickly build reduced-size databases
115by reading only the NAME sections of manuals.
116The resulting databases will usually contain names and descriptions only.
117.It Fl T Cm utf8
118Use UTF-8 encoding instead of ASCII for strings stored in the databases.
119.It Fl t Ar
120Check the given
121.Ar files
122for potential problems.
123Implies
124.Fl a ,
125.Fl n ,
126and
127.Fl p .
128All diagnostic messages are printed to the standard output;
129the standard error output is not used.
130.It Fl u Ar dir
131Remove
132.Ar
133from the database in
134.Ar dir .
135If that causes the database to become empty, also delete the database file.
136.El
137.Pp
138If fatal parse errors are encountered while parsing, the offending file
139is printed to stderr, omitted from the index, and the parse continues
140with the next input file.
141.Sh ENVIRONMENT
142.Bl -tag -width MANPATH
143.It Ev MANPATH
144A colon-separated list of directories to create databases in.
145Ignored if a
146.Ar dir
147argument or the
148.Fl t
149option is specified.
150.El
151.Sh FILES
152.Bl -tag -width Ds
153.It Pa mandoc.db
154A database of manpages relative to the directory of the file.
155This file is portable across architectures and systems, so long as the
156manpage hierarchy it indexes does not change.
157.It Pa /etc/man.conf
158The default
159.Xr man 1
160configuration file.
161.El
162.Sh EXIT STATUS
163The
164.Nm
165utility exits with one of the following values:
166.Pp
167.Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
168.It 0
169No errors occurred.
170.It 5
171Invalid command line arguments were specified.
172No input files have been read.
173.It 6
174An operating system error occurred, for example memory exhaustion or an
175error accessing input files.
176Such errors cause
177.Nm
178to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing or formatting a file.
179The output databases are corrupt and should be removed.
180.El
181.Sh SEE ALSO
182.Xr apropos 1 ,
183.Xr man 1 ,
184.Xr whatis 1 ,
185.Xr man.conf 5
186.Sh HISTORY
187A
188.Nm
189utility first appeared in
190.Bx 2 .
191It was rewritten in
192.Xr perl 1
193for
194.Ox 2.7
195and in C for
196.Ox 5.6 .
197.Pp
198The
199.Ar dir
200argument first appeared in
201.Nx 1.0 ;
202the options
203.Fl dpt
204in
205.Ox 2.7 ;
206the option
207.Fl u
208in
209.Ox 3.4 ;
210and the options
211.Fl aCDnQT
212in
213.Ox 5.6 .
214.Sh AUTHORS
215.An -nosplit
216.An Bill Joy
217wrote the original
218.Bx
219.Nm
220in February 1979,
221.An Marc Espie
222started the Perl version in 2000,
223and the current version of
224.Nm
225was written by
226.An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt kristaps@bsd.lv
227and
228.An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org .
229