1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)man.conf.5 8.5 (Berkeley) 1/2/94 33.\" 34.Dd January 2, 1994 35.Dt MAN.CONF 5 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm man.conf 39.Nd configuration file for 40.Xr man 1 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42The 43.Xr man 1 , 44.Xr apropos 1 , 45and 46.Xr whatis 1 47commands 48search for manual pages or their database files as specified by the 49.Nm man.conf 50file. 51Manual pages are normally expected to be preformatted (see 52.Xr nroff 1 ) 53and named with a trailing ``.0''. 54.Pp 55The 56.Nm man.conf 57file contains two types of lines. 58.Pp 59The first type of line is a ``section'' line, which contains a 60section name followed by one or more directory paths. 61The directory paths may contain the normal shell globbing characters, 62including curly braces (``{}''); to escape a shell globbing character, 63precede it with a backslash (``\e''). 64Lines in this format specify that manual pages for the section 65may be found in the following directories. 66.Pp 67Directories named with a trailing slash character (``/'') are expected 68to contain subdirectories of manual pages, (see the keyword ``_subdir'' 69below) instead of manual pages. 70These subdirectories are searched instead of the directory. 71.Pp 72Before searching any directory for a manual page, the 73.Xr man 1 74command always searches the subdirectory with the same name 75as the current machine type, if it exists. 76No specification of these subdirectories is necessary in the 77.Nm man.conf 78file. 79.Pp 80Section names are unrestricted except for the reserved words specified 81below; in general, you should avoid anything with a leading underscore 82(``_'') to avoid future incompatibilities. 83.Pp 84The section named ``_default'' is the list of directories that will 85be searched if no section is specified by the user. 86.Pp 87The second type of line is preceded with a ``keyword''. 88The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows: 89.Pp 90.Bl -tag -width "_version" 91.It _build 92Man file names, regardless of their format, are expected to end in 93a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix. 94The first field of a _build line lists a suffix which indicates 95files which need to be reformated or manipulated in some way before 96being displayed to the user. 97The suffix may contain the normal shell globbing characters (NOT 98including curly braces (``{}'')). 99The rest of the line must be a shell command line, the standard 100output of which is the manual page in a format which may be directly 101displayed to the user. 102Any occurrences of the string ``%s'' in the shell command line will 103be replaced by the name of the file which is being reformatted. 104.It _subdir 105The list (in search order) of subdirectories which will be searched in 106any directory named with a trailing slash (``/'') character. 107This list is also used when a path is specified to the 108.Xr man 1 109utility by the user, using the 110.Ev MANPATH 111environment variable or the 112.Fl M 113and 114.Fl m 115options. 116.It _suffix 117Man file names, regardless of their format are expected to end in 118a ``.*'' pattern, i.e. a ``.'' followed by some suffix. 119Each field of a _suffix line is a suffix which indicates 120files which do not need to be reformatted or manipulated 121in any way, but which may be directly displayed to the user. 122Each suffix may contain the normal shell globbing characters (NOT 123including curly braces (``{}'')). 124.It _version 125The version of the configuration file. 126.It _whatdb 127The full pathname (not just a directory path) for a database to be used 128by the 129.Xr apropos 1 130and 131.Xr whatis 1 132commands. 133.El 134.Pp 135Multiple specifications for all types of lines are cumulative and the 136entries are used in the order listed in the file; multiple entries may 137be listed per line, as well. 138.Pp 139Empty lines or lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash 140mark (``#'') are ignored. 141.Sh EXAMPLES 142Given the following 143.Nm man.conf 144file: 145.Bd -literal -offset indent 146_version BSD.2 147_subdir cat[123] 148_suffix .0 149_build .[1-9] nroff -man %s 150_build .tbl tbl %s | nroff -man 151_default /usr/share/man/ 152sect3 /usr/share/man/{old/,}cat3 153.Ed 154.Pp 155By default, the command 156.Dq Li man mktemp 157will search for 158``mktemp.<any_digit>'' and ``mktemp.tbl'' 159in the directories 160.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat1 , 161.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat2 , 162and 163.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat3 . 164If on a machine of type ``vax'', the subdirectory ``vax'' in each 165directory would be searched as well, before the directory was 166searched. 167.Pp 168If ``mktemp.tbl'' was found first, the command 169.Dq Li tbl <manual page> | nroff -man 170would be run to build a man page for display to the user. 171.Pp 172The command 173.Dq Li man sect3 mktemp 174would search the directories 175.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/old/cat3 176and 177.Dq Pa /usr/share/man/cat3 , 178in that order, for 179the mktemp manual page. 180If a subdirectory with the same name as the current machine type 181existed in any of them, it would be searched as well, before each 182of them were searched. 183.Sh FILES 184.Bl -tag -width /etc/man.conf -compact 185.It Pa /etc/man.conf 186Standard manual directory search path. 187.El 188.Sh SEE ALSO 189.Xr apropos 1 , 190.Xr machine 1 , 191.Xr man 1 , 192.Xr whatis 1 , 193.Xr whereis 1 , 194.Xr fnmatch 3 , 195.Xr glob 3 196