Re: [HACKERS] Re: [ANNOUNCE] New man pages

> > Pages from multi-character sections are stored in the directory for the
> > first character. For instance: /usr/man/man7/select.7l.gz
>
> Oh! afaik that is one option; the man system in general could also
> handle man7l/select.7.gz right? You would update /etc/man.config to
> add, say, "7l" to the list of sections.
>
> But is is against Debian policy to invent new directories for pages? I
> see that my RH linux system actually does about the same as Debian;
> there are some ".1x" files in the /usr/man/man1 directory.

I have never seen a 'name.1x' or anything with a more than
single-character file prefix, and once it is formatted, it becomes
name.0. I don't see it buys us anything to do this. What we could do
is to put throw them in section 7, assuming there is no conflict. I
only have two pgp man pages in my 7.

>
> > >> I would like to use existing sections, rather than do our own. I found
> > >> I had to modify the man page search to look in a manl, and others may
> > >> have the same problem.
> > For Debian, I have relocated the SQL pages to section 7l and commands such
> > as psql and createuser go in section 1. Policy requires me to use one of
> > the numbered sections (1-8), though I can use a suffix to ensure uniqueness.
> > On Debian GNU/Linux, the sections are:
> > 1 User commands
> > 2 System calls
> > 3 Library routines
> > 4 Devices
> > 5 File formats
> > 6 Games
> > 7 Miscellaneous
> > 8 System administration
>
> Same for Linux ("man 7 man" has a summary).
>
> > >otoh, it does eliminate the possibility of man page pollution if we
> > >manage to have the same man page name as some other existing page.
> > As of course we do; for example, select is also in section 2.
>
> A near miss, since we weren't likely to have chosen section 2 for
> *our* select. But it does illustrate the risk.
>
> > >*That* would be a bad thing. And in general adding ~75 man pages to
> > >existing sections is a pretty big load...
> > I'm not sure that's much of a problem. These are the figures from my
> > system for /usr/man, /usr/share/man, /usr/X11R6/man and /usr/local/man
> > combined:
>
> Right.
>
> So, do Oliver's conventions make sense for most platforms? istm that
> they do. Would folks have problems with a mapping similar to what
> Oliver uses? We would use section one (1) and section seven (7), with
> a qualifier of ell (l) on each of the man page names. I won't do
> anything about it right now, but would like to get a consensus now
> that the subject has come up. Speak up now or forever hold your...

I agree with the 7, but see no need for the additional qualifier. I
think that could cause more problems than it is worth.

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