247 lines
4.0 KiB
HTML
247 lines
4.0 KiB
HTML
<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>How do I document several programs/functions in a
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single man page?</TITLE
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><META
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK
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REL="HOME"
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TITLE="Linux Man Page Howto"
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TITLE="How should a formatted man page look?"
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HREF="q3.html"><LINK
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TITLE="Which macro package should I
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use?"
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>Linux Man Page Howto</TH
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CLASS="SECT1"
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><H1
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CLASS="SECT1"
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><A
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NAME="Q4"
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></A
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>4. How do I document several programs/functions in a
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single man page?</H1
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><P
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>Many programs (<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>grep</TT
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>,
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>egrep</TT
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>) and functions (<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>printf</TT
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>,
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>fprintf</TT
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>, ...) are documented in a single man
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page. However, these man pages would be quite useless if they were
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only accessible under one name. We cannot expect a user to remember
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that the <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>egrep</TT
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> man page is actually the
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>grep</TT
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> man page. It is therefore necessary to have
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the man page available under different names. You have several
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possibilities to achieve this:</P
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><P
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></P
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><OL
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TYPE="1"
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><LI
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><P
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>have identical copies for each name.</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>connect all man pages using hard links.</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>symbolic links pointing to the actual man page.</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>use <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>'s `source' mechanism
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provided by the <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>.so</TT
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> macro.</P
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></LI
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></OL
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><P
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>The first way is obviously a waste of disk space. The second
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is not recommended because intelligent versions of the
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>catman</TT
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> program can save a lot of work by looking
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at the the file type or contents. Hard links will prevent
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>catman</TT
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> from being clever. (Note that
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>catman</TT
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>'s purpose is to format all man pages
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so they can be displayed quickly.) The third alternative has a
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slight drawback: if flexibility is a concern, you have to be aware
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that there are file systems that do not support symbolic links. The
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upshot of this is that the Best Thing (TM) is using
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>'s source mechanism. Here's how to
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do it: If you want to have your man page available under the names
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`foo' and `bar' in section 1, then put the man page in
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foo.1 and have bar.1 look like this:</P
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><P
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><TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>.so man1/foo.1</TT
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></P
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><P
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>It is important to specify the <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>man1/</TT
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>
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directory part as well as the file name `foo.1' because when
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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> is run by the browser it will have the
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manual base directory as its current working directory (cwd) and
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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> interprets <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>.so</TT
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>
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arguments relative to the cwd.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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HREF="q3.html"
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>Prev</A
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HREF="index.html"
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>Home</A
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HREF="q5.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
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>How should a formatted man page look?</TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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> </TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
|
>Which macro package should I
|
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use?</TD
|
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></TR
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></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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> |