Steve also wrote about MANPATH. See below.
I'm running these tests on an outdated Ubuntu 9.10 box, but I expect that
the results apply wherever GNU is being used.
I also saw a lot of that stuff. It was a lot to wade through and it never
got to the basic point. Apparently, manpath is automatically figuring out
that if /whatever/bin is in $PATH and /whatever/man exists, then it adds
/whatever/man to the output of manpath. I have not set $MANPATH or used a
~/.manpath or changed /etc/manpath.config, yet I get this:
$ echo $HOME
/home/mbmiller
$ echo $PATH
/home/mbmiller/bin:/home/mbmiller/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
$ manpath
/home/mbmiller/local/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/share/man
Note that my $HOME/bin is in $PATH, but $HOME/man does not exist, and
$HOME/man is not listed in the ouptput of manpath. However,
$HOME/local/bin is in $PATH, $HOME/local/man exists and $HOME/local/man is
in the output of manpath.
In other words, I don't have to do anything to get what I want from this.
More testing to confirm the theory:
$ mkdir -p blorf/{bin,man}
$ export PATH=/home/mbmiller/foo/bin:$PATH
$ echo $PATH
/home/mbmiller/foo/bin:/home/mbmiller/bin:/home/mbmiller/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
$ manpath
/home/mbmiller/foo/man:/home/mbmiller/local/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/share/man
In other words, it works even when the directories are empty.
Mike
On Wed, 18 Sep 2013, Steve Trapp wrote:
> Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 21:59:59 -0500
> From: Steve Trapp <stevetrapp at comcast.net>
> To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org
> Subject: Re: [tclug-list] setting $INFOPATH and $MANPATH in bash
>
>
> Mike Miller-
>
> I use Debian. Your mileage may vary if you use something else...
>
> 1. Under "man man", it says the following for option < -C > of man:
>
> -C file, --config-file=file
> Use this user configuration file rather than the default
> of ~/.manpath.
>
> 2. Under "man man", in the < FILES > section, it says:
>
> /etc/manpath.config
> man-db configuration file.
>
> 3. There is a "man manpath" that tells you about the manpath command.
>
> 4. There is a "man 5 manpath" (i.e., section < 5 > of the manual pages)
> which describes the format of the < man-db > configuration files (like
> <~/.manpath> from #1, and </etc/manpath.config> from #2.
>
> 5. I have a very short sample <~/.manpath> that I'll share with you:
>
> MANPATH_MAP /home/steve/bin /home/steve/doc/man
>
> I store my own binaries into /home/steve/bin. I have a nonstandard
> place (in my opinion) to put the man pages, namely, /home/steve/doc/man
> instead of /home/steve/man.
>
> I am not sure whether I'd need the ~/.manpath if I'd have
> used /home/steve/man OR not. This is left as an exercise for Mike
> Miller. :)
>
> 6. I get the feeling that the MANPATH environment variable is being
> deprecated (i.e., phased out).
>
> 7. These seven points constitutes my entire knowledge of manpath/MANPATH.
> No googling required?! :)
>
> Hope this helps,
> -Steve
>
>
> On Wed, 18 Sep 2013 20:04:28 -0500 (CDT),
> Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The docs aren't very clear on how this is accomplished. It looks like
>> I'm doing $PATH correctly, and after that it looks like $MANPATH gets
>> fixed up automatically because the manpath program figures out the
>> correspondence of bin directories with man directories.
>>
>> $INFOPATH is more obscure. It looks like if I create $INFOPATH in the
>> environment, it adds listed directories to the path for info, but info is
>> finding more directories from some other source. It also doesn't find
>> info directories automatically by correspondence with bin directories
>> listed in $PATH.
>>
>> Google results are surprisingly unhelpful. Any ideas?
>>
>> Mike
>> _______________________________________________
>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>
> --
> Name: Steve Trapp
> Homepage: http://steventrapp.home.comcast.net
> Email: stevetrapp **AT** comcast **DOT** net
> Locale: en_US.UTF-8 | Location: Upper Midwest
>