2.11BSD#431 - /usr/man/cat8/catman.0

CATMAN(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual		CATMAN(8)


NAME
     catman - create the cat files for the manual

SYNOPSIS
     /usr/sbin/catman [ -p ] [ -n ] [ -w ] [ -M path ] [ sections
     ]

DESCRIPTION
     Catman creates the preformatted versions of the on-line
     manual from the nroff input files.  Each manual page is
     examined and those whose preformatted versions are missing
     or out of date are recreated.  If any changes are made, cat-
     man will recreate the whatis database.

     If there is one parameter not starting with a `-', it is
     taken to be a list of manual sections to look in.	For exam-
     ple

	  catman 123

     will cause the updating to only happen to manual sections 1,
     2, and 3.

     Options:

     -n   prevents creations of the whatis database.

     -p   prints what would be done instead of doing it.

     -w   causes only the whatis database to be created.  No
	  manual reformatting is done.

     -M   updates manual pages located in the set of directories
	  specified by path (/usr/man by default).  Path has the
	  form of a colon (`:') separated list of directory
	  names, for example `/usr/local/man:/usr/man'.  If the
	  environment variable `MANPATH' is set, its value is
	  used for the default path.

     If the nroff source file contains only a line of the form
     `.so manx/yyy.x', a symbolic link is made in the catx direc-
     tory to the appropriate preformatted manual page.	This
     feature allows easy distribution of the preformatted manual
     pages among a group of associated machines with rdist(1).
     The nroff sources need not be distributed to all machines,
     thus saving the associated disk space.  As an example, con-
     sider a local network with 5 machines, called mach1 through
     mach5.  Suppose mach3 has the manual page nroff sources.
     Every night, mach3 runs catman via cron(8) and later runs
     rdist with a distfile that looks like:


Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			1


CATMAN(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual		CATMAN(8)


	  MANSLAVES = ( mach1 mach2 mach4 mach5 )

	  MANUALS = (/usr/man/cat[1-8no] /usr/man/whatis)

	  ${MANUALS} -> ${MANSLAVES}
		  install -R;
		  notify root;


FILES
     /usr/man		    default manual directory location
     /usr/man/man?/*.*	    raw (nroff input) manual sections
     /usr/man/cat?/*.*	    preformatted manual pages
     /usr/man/whatis	    whatis database
     /usr/sbin/makewhatis   command script to make whatis database

SEE ALSO
     man(1), cron(8), rdist(1)

BUGS
     Acts oddly on nights with full moons.

     The need for catman(8) is almost but not quite gone.  Most
     of the manpages have been moved out of /usr/src/man into the
     sourcecode hierarchy.  The recreation of the whatis database
     is the main use of catman now.


Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			2