Re: Attn gawk and man-db maintainers: 3am pages shadowing 3p

[Achim Gratz <Stromeko@nexgo.de>]

Yaakov Selkowitz writes:
> This is not stock behaviour, nor does Fedora carry such a patch.

I've linked that patch in an earlier message.

> As this is a user-visible change to a core POSIX-mandated utility, I
> do not believe such a patch should be included without broader support
> thereto.

The point of that change is indeed that it's user-visible.  The other
two options (showing the first page of an essentially unknowable order)
or showing all pages just don't make sense from a user perspective,
especially since the aporopos command ususally returns many more matches
than the same keyword used as an argument for man.  It used to be the
case that you could know which section you were expecting to find
something.  With all the extra extended sections these days (different
on each system) that no longer works reliably enough.

> env MAN_POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 man readdir
Man: find all matching manual pages
 * readdir (3)
   readdir (3am)
   readdir (2)
   readdir (3p)
[goes on to show 3 readdir, preferred over section 2 by /etc/manpath.config]


Regards,
Achim.
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