man.conf.5

   1 .\"     $Id: man.conf.5,v 1.8 2020/02/10 14:42:10 schwarze Exp $
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   3 .\" Copyright (c) 2015, 2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
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  17 .Dd $Mdocdate: February 10 2020 $
  18 .Dt MAN.CONF 5
  19 .Os
  20 .Sh NAME
  21 .Nm man.conf
  22 .Nd configuration file for man
  23 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  24 This is the configuration file
  25 for the
  26 .Xr man 1 ,
  27 .Xr apropos 1 ,
  28 and
  29 .Xr makewhatis 8
  30 utilities.
  31 Its presence, and all directives, are optional.
  32 .Pp
  33 This file is an ASCII text file.
  34 Leading whitespace on lines, lines starting with
  35 .Sq # ,
  36 and blank lines are ignored.
  37 Words are separated by whitespace.
  38 The first word on each line is the name of a configuration directive.
  39 .Pp
  40 The following directives are supported:
  41 .Bl -tag -width Ds
  42 .It Ic manpath Ar path
  43 Override the default search
  44 .Ar path
  45 for
  46 .Xr man 1 ,
  47 .Xr apropos 1 ,
  48 and
  49 .Xr makewhatis 8 .
  50 It can be used multiple times to specify multiple paths,
  51 with the order determining the manual page search order.
  52 .Pp
  53 Each path is a tree containing subdirectories
  54 whose names consist of the strings
  55 .Sq man
  56 and/or
  57 .Sq cat
  58 followed by the names of sections, usually single digits.
  59 The former are supposed to contain unformatted manual pages in
  60 .Xr mdoc 7
  61 and/or
  62 .Xr man 7
  63 format; file names should end with the name of the section
  64 preceded by a dot.
  65 The latter should contain preformatted manual pages;
  66 file names should end with
  67 .Ql .0 .
  68 .Pp
  69 Creating a
  70 .Xr mandoc.db 5
  71 database with
  72 .Xr makewhatis 8
  73 in each directory configured with
  74 .Ic manpath
  75 is recommended and necessary for
  76 .Xr apropos 1
  77 to work, and also for
  78 .Xr man 1
  79 on operating systems like
  80 .Ox
  81 that install each manual page with only one file name in the file system,
  82 even if it documents multiple utilities or functions.
  83 .It Ic output Ar option Op Ar value
  84 Configure the default value of an output option.
  85 These directives are overridden by the
  86 .Fl O
  87 command line options of the same names.
  88 For details, see the
  89 .Xr mandoc 1
  90 manual.
  91 .Pp
  92 .Bl -column fragment integer "ascii, utf8" -compact
  93 .It Ar option   Ta Ar value Ta used by Fl T Ta purpose
  94 .It Ta Ta Ta
  95 .It Ic fragment Ta none     Ta Cm html Ta print only body
  96 .It Ic includes Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta path to header files
  97 .It Ic indent   Ta integer  Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta left margin
  98 .It Ic man      Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta path for \&Xr links
  99 .It Ic paper    Ta string   Ta Cm ps , pdf Ta paper size
 100 .It Ic style    Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta CSS file
 101 .It Ic toc      Ta none     Ta Cm html Ta print table of contents
 102 .It Ic width    Ta integer  Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta right margin
 103 .El
 104 .El
 105 .Sh FILES
 106 .Bl -tag -width /etc/examples/man.conf -compact
 107 .It Pa /etc/man.conf
 108 .El
 109 .Sh EXAMPLES
 110 The following configuration file reproduces the defaults:
 111 installing it is equivalent to not having a
 112 .Nm
 113 file at all.
 114 .Bd -literal -offset indent
 115 manpath /usr/share/man
 116 manpath /usr/X11R6/man
 117 manpath /usr/local/man
 118 .Ed
 119 .Sh SEE ALSO
 120 .Xr apropos 1 ,
 121 .Xr man 1 ,
 122 .Xr makewhatis 8
 123 .Sh HISTORY
 124 A relatively complicated
 125 .Nm
 126 file format first appeared in
 127 .Bx 4.3 Reno .
 128 For
 129 .Ox 5.8 ,
 130 it was redesigned from scratch, aiming for simplicity.
 131 .Sh AUTHORS
 132 .An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org