Man Pages – How the Path to Search for ‘Man’ Pages is Set

manpath

I'm puzzled by how the path used for finding man pages is set. The "right thing" seems to happen magically. For example, if change my PATH from

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/texbin

/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/texbin

the path searched for man pages (according to man --path) changes from

/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/opt/X11/share/man:/usr/local/git/share/man:/usr/texbin/man

/usr/local/git/share/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/opt/X11/share/man:/usr/texbin/man

Somehow, the version of Git that I'm "overriding" the default Git with, is having it's documentation correctly found before any documentation for any built in Git. How is that happening?

Best Answer

The path for man is determined either by the env variable MANPATH or by constructing a MANPATH from PATH and /etc/manpath.config

The reason your local git man pages are being picked up first is because the MANPATH generated is in the same order present in PATH, so your /usr/local/git/bin at the beginning of PATH means that manpath will (if it can find it) place the matching man path at the beginning of MANPATH (in this case, /usr/local/git/share/man).

Paths that are earlier in your MANPATH are searched first and man(1) will display the first match.

For more information on this see manpath(1) and for the configuration file see manpath(5)

Related Solutions

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) ))

How does Solaris find man pages

Solaris 10's default MANPATH is /usr/share/man. You can add values to it:

MANPATH="/usr/share/man:/opt/sfw/man"

See the man page for more information.

Solaris 11's default MANPATH is derived from PATH, so you wouldn't need to set the environment variable.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Emacs mode for man pages

How does Solaris find man pages

Related Question