1 .\" Man page for format of the manpath.config data file
3 .\" Copyright (C) 1994, 1995 Graeme W. Wilford. (Wilf.)
4 .\" Copyright (C) 2001-2019 Colin Watson.
6 .\" You may distribute under the terms of the GNU General Public
7 .\" License as specified in the file COPYING that comes with the
8 .\" man-db distribution.
10 .\" Sat Oct 29 13:09:31 GMT 1994 Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk)
13 .TH MANPATH 5 "%date%" "%version%" "%manpath_config_file%"
15 manpath \- format of the %manpath_config_file% file
17 The manpath configuration file is used by the manual page utilities
18 to assess users' manpaths at run time, to indicate which manual page
19 hierarchies (manpaths) are to be treated as system hierarchies and to
20 assign them directories to be used for storing cat files.
22 If the environment variable
24 is already set, the information contained within %manpath_config_file% will
27 By default, man-db examines the user's
38 line in the configuration file for a given
41 .IR path_element/../man ,
42 .IR path_element/man ,
43 .IR path_element/../share/man ,
45 .IR path_element/share/man
46 that exist as directories to the search path.
50 entries from the configuration file to the search path.
56 environment variable is set, then that should consist of a sequence of
57 operating system names separated by commas or colons.
58 This acts as a template, expanding the search path once more to allow access
59 to other operating systems' manual pages: for each system name, man-db looks
60 for that name as a subdirectory of each entry in the search path, and adds
61 it to the final search path if it exists.
64 inserts the normal search path without subdirectories.
65 For example, if the search path would otherwise have been
66 .IR /usr/share/man:/usr/local/man ,
71 then the final search path will be
72 .IR /usr/share/man/newOS:/usr/share/man:/usr/local/man/newOS:/usr/local/man .
76 environment variable overrides man-db's default manual page search paths.
77 Most users should not need to set it.
78 Its syntax is similar to the
80 environment variable: it consists of a sequence of directory names separated
82 It overrides the default search path described above.
86 starts with a colon, then the default search path is added at its start.
89 ends with a colon, then the default search path is added at its end.
92 contains a double colon
94 then the default search path is inserted in the middle of the value, between
97 The following field types are currently recognised:
100 Blank lines or those beginning with a
102 will be treated as comments and ignored.
104 .BI MANDATORY_MANPATH \ manpath_element
105 Lines of this form indicate manpaths that every automatically generated
108 This will typically include
111 .BI MANPATH_MAP \ path_element\ manpath_element
112 Lines of this form set up
125 \fBMANDB_MAP \fImanpath_element \fR\|[\| \fIcatpath_element\fR \|]
126 Lines of this form indicate which manpaths are to be treated as system
127 manpaths, and optionally where their cat files should be stored.
128 This field type is particularly important if
130 is a setuid program, as (when in the system configuration file
131 %manpath_config_file% rather than the per-user configuration file .manpath)
132 it indicates which manual page hierarchies to access as the setuid user and
133 which as the invoking user.
135 The system manual page hierarchies are usually those stored under
143 If cat pages from a particular
145 are not to be stored or are to be stored in the traditional location,
149 Traditional cat placement would be impossible for read only mounted manual
150 page hierarchies and because of this it is possible to specify any valid
151 directory hierarchy for their storage.
156 can be used in place of an actual directory.
158 Unfortunately, it is necessary to specify
160 system man tree paths, including alternate operating system paths such as
165 .IR /usr/man/de_DE.88591 .
167 As the information is parsed line by line in the order written, it is
168 necessary for any manpath that is a sub-hierarchy of another hierarchy to be
169 listed first, otherwise an incorrect match will be made.
171 .I /usr/man/de_DE.88591
175 .BI DEFINE \ key\ value
176 Lines of this form define miscellaneous configuration variables; see the
177 default configuration file for those variables used by the manual pager
179 They include default paths to various programs (such as
183 and default sets of arguments to those programs.
185 \fBSECTION\fR \fIsection\fR .\|.\|.
187 Lines of this form define the order in which manual sections should be
191 directives in the configuration file, the default is:
195 .if !'po4a'hide' SECTION 1 n l 8 3 0 2 5 4 9 6 7
201 directives are given, their section lists will be concatenated.
203 If a particular extension is not in this list (say, 1mh) it will be
204 displayed with the rest of the section it belongs to.
205 The effect of this is that you only need to explicitly list extensions if
206 you want to force a particular order.
207 Sections with extensions should usually be adjacent to their main section
208 (e.g. "1 1mh 8 ...").
211 is accepted as an alternative name for this directive.
214 .BI MINCATWIDTH \ width
215 If the terminal width is less than
217 cat pages will not be created (if missing) or displayed.
220 .BI MAXCATWIDTH \ width
221 If the terminal width is greater than
223 cat pages will not be created (if missing) or displayed.
229 is non-zero, cat pages will always be formatted for a terminal of the given
230 width, regardless of the width of the terminal actually being used.
231 This should generally be within the range set by
236 .if !'po4a'hide' .B NOCACHE
239 from creating cat pages automatically.
241 Unless the rules above are followed and observed precisely, the manual pager
242 utilities will not function as desired.
243 The rules are overly complicated.
245 .if !'po4a'hide' https://gitlab.com/cjwatson/man-db/-/issues
247 .if !'po4a'hide' https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db