CHAPTER 24 Useful Utilities

24.1 Format online manual pages, catman

catman creates the display files used by the manual command, man. These files are put in directories under /usr/man to match the /usr/man/man* entries, i.e. /usr/man/cat[1-8,l,n] (SunOS 4.1.X) or /usr/man/cat[1[,b,c,f,m,s],2,3[,b,c,e,g,i,k,m,n,r,s,t,x],4,4b,5,6,7,9[,e,f,s],l,n] (SunOS 5.X) and a database of the one-line synopses are put in /usr/man/whatis (SunOS 4.1.X) or /usr/man/windex (SunOS 5.X) for use by the whatis and "man -k keyword" commands. Running catman doubles the space required to contain the man pages, but allows the man command to execute considerably faster.

The man pages generally follow the conventions given in the following table.
Man Page Placements
SunOS 4.X SunOS 5.X Description
man1 man1 user commands - from the shell prompt
man2 man2 system calls - C functions interfacing between user programs and the kernel
man3 man3 user level library functions - C library functions for user programs
man4 man7 & man9 device drivers and network interfaces - describes access to special files in /dev
man5 man4 file formats - describes formats used by system programs
man6 man6 games and demo descriptions
man7 man5 miscellaneous - including standards and text processing
man8 man1m system administration - commands for system maintenance and operation
manl manl locally installed man pages
mann mann new man pages

Man Page Placements
SunOS 4.X	SunOS 5.X	Description
man1	man1	user commands - from the shell prompt
man2	man2	system calls - C functions interfacing between user programs and the kernel
man3	man3	user level library functions - C library functions for user programs
man4	man7 & man9	device drivers and network interfaces - describes access to special files in /dev
man5	man4	file formats - describes formats used by system programs
man6	man6	games and demo descriptions
man7	man5	miscellaneous - including standards and text processing
man8	man1m	system administration - commands for system maintenance and operation
manl	manl	locally installed man pages
mann	mann	new man pages

You can install other man pages under any hierarchy, e.g. /usr/local/man or /usr/lang/man, and make them accessible to the man command by setting the MANPATH environment variable to include them, i.e. for the C-shell:

% setenv MANPATH /usr/local/man:/usr/man:/usr/lang/man

and for the Bourne shell:

MANPATH=/usr/local/man:/usr/man:/usr/lang/man ; export MANPATH

Unix System Administration - 8 AUG 1996

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