Debian – Find and install man file manually

debiangccmanroff

I seem to be missing some man pages, notably gcc and g++. It doesn't help that I specify the section. whereis doesn't list man pages for those two, so I think they are simply not there.

With Google I get a lot, for example: http://linux.die.net/man/1/g++ (seems to be ordinary HTML though… or is it man page markup?)

I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn how to replace them manually. I guess I'm looking for a gcc.1.gz file?

Do I get it from GNU, from Debian, or could it be automated somehow? How much work is put into those files – if I get one, is it likely to be 99% correct or do they really differ a lot with time/architecture?

Best Answer

You should add the non-free and contrib repositories to your sources list and run apt-get update afterwards.

Now you can install the gcc-doc package which contains the man-pages with:

apt-get install gcc-doc

The problem is that the gcc documentation is released under the GNU Free Documentation License which is considered non-free by Debian.

Related Solutions

Nested lists in man page

Start the list with .RS, end with .RE.
Start list items with .IP followed by term. Enclose the term in double quotes if contains multiple words.
Put the description text in the next line after the list item start.
Is nestable, so the description may contain further lists.
Use \fB..\fP for bolding the term instead of .B. (Same for underline – use \fI..\fP instead of .I.)

.RS
.IP \fBA\fP
\- Flag 1
.IP \fBB\fP
\- Flag 2
.IP \fBC\fP
\- A slightly longer flag description that could take up more than the width
of the average console. In fact you'd need a very wide console to read all
this.
.RE

To increase your productivity I suggest to write your man pages in a friendlier format then convert them. Some suitable tools are enumerated in Can I create a man page for a script?.

Emacs mode for man pages

How to update the man page in man page mode while editing the roff source:

;;;; MAN / man
(defvar *curr-man* "~/mansv/ls.1")

(defun edman ()
  "edit the current work-in-progress man page"
  (interactive)
  (find-file *curr-man*) )

(defun upman () ; edit: better version of this function below
  "update the current work-in-progress man page"
  (interactive)
  (buffer-menu)
  (revert-buffer)
  (with-temp-buffer
    (progn
      (insert-buffer-substring "*Buffer List*")
      (beginning-of-buffer)
        (let ((man-buffer (format "*Man %s*" *curr-man*)))
          (if (word-search-forward man-buffer (point-max) t) ; t = nil on fail
            (kill-buffer man-buffer) ))
      (man *curr-man*)
      (edman)
      (kill-buffer "*Buffer List*") )))

EDIT

This version of upman is hopefully more stable. Note the introducton of a new global.

(defun upman ()
  "update the current work-in-progress man page"
  (interactive)
  (if (get-buffer *curr-man-file*) (save-buffer))
  (let ((man-buffer (format "*Man %s*" *curr-man*)))
    (if (get-buffer man-buffer) (kill-buffer man-buffer))
    (man *curr-man*)
    (edman) ))

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Nested lists in man page

Emacs mode for man pages

Related Question