Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!pyramid!prls!gordon
From: gordon@prls.UUCP (Gordon Vickers)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: man pages - what goes where?
Message-ID: <23240@prls.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 89 15:51:19 GMT
References: <1989Jun19.021419.1512@telly.on.ca> <2115@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> <14818@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Reply-To: gordon@prls.UUCP (Gordon Vickers)
Organization: Philips Research Labs, Sunnyvale, California
Lines: 32

In article <14818@duke.cs.duke.edu> bet@orion.mc.duke.edu (Bennett Todd) writes:
->If you are fortunate enough to be using a system whose man(1) command
->knows about the environment variable MANPATH, then you can just put
->	MANPATH='/usr/man:/usr/local/man'
->(for Bourne style shells) or
->	setenv MANPATH '/usr/man:/usr/local/man'
  [ and don't forget to export MANPATH - gpv]
->(for C shells) in the same place you add /usr/local/bin to the PATH,
->then have a complete heirarchy of /usr/local/man/{man,cat}[1-8]. We do
->this, and as as result /usr/local stands independant of the rest of the
->system (we also have /usr/local/lib, /usr/local/etc, /usr/local/include,
->and /usr/local/src). It sure is nice being able to mount up one
->filesystem for everybody, being able to upgrade the OS and leave the
->local stuff virtually completely installed, being able to take
->/usr/local/src and put it in a new filesystem on a new machine and
->rebuild a complete standalone /usr/local tree for that system, and like
->that. 

      I accomplish the same thing by just using soft links and adding
    a suitable uppercase letter to the directory name (i.e. locally
    produced man pages are in manL).
      Example: ln -s /a/man/manL  /usr/man/manL   (local stuf)
               ln -s /a/man/manP  /usr/man/manP   (public i.e. USENET stuf)
               ln -s /a/man/manG  /usr/man/manG   (games)
             etc.
   This method doesn't require every user to change thier start up script.
   When I install an O.S. upgrade, I unmount the /a filesystem first (just
   in case the new distribution adds a man directory with one of these names).

Gordon Vickers 408/991-5370 (Sunnyvale,Ca); {mips|pyramid|philabs}!prls!gordon
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