Xman and nroff incompatibility

Xman and nroff incompatibility

[Rodrigo Medina]

Hi all,
I am not sure if this is the right list for sending this comment, it
is more a XFree issue than a cygwin-xfree issue. In any case...
Since some upgrading long ago, xman stopped functioning properly. It
does not recognize the escape sequences that, instead, are written
literally. I have traced the problem to the following. At some point
the groff package changed the way the nroff script functions. There
are two kinds of output, old style that use a lot of ^H for underline
etc., and the new style with the escape sequences.  Xman only 
understand the old style format. In order to obtain the old style
output one  has to call nroff with the -c option. Xman calls nroff
without the -c option. The man page of xman claims that in some
operative systems xman reads /etc/man.config. It seems that it is not
true for cygwin, or at least it does not use the NROFF string for
calling nroff. I have modified the nroff script in order to force
a -c option. Of course it is not a clean solution. The best thing to
do is to include in the Xman resources the string it is used for
calling nroff. If it is already there it should be documented in the
man page.
I hope that this comment could be useful.

Rodrigo Medina.
			  	

Re: Xman and nroff incompatibility

[Igor Pechtchanski]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Rodrigo Medina wrote:

> Hi all,
> I am not sure if this is the right list for sending this comment, it
> is more a XFree issue than a cygwin-xfree issue. In any case...
> Since some upgrading long ago, xman stopped functioning properly. It
> does not recognize the escape sequences that, instead, are written
> literally. I have traced the problem to the following. At some point
> the groff package changed the way the nroff script functions. There
> are two kinds of output, old style that use a lot of ^H for underline
> etc., and the new style with the escape sequences.  Xman only
> understand the old style format. In order to obtain the old style
> output one  has to call nroff with the -c option. Xman calls nroff
> without the -c option. The man page of xman claims that in some
> operative systems xman reads /etc/man.config.

FYI, Cygwin man doesn't use /etc/man.config.  I believe the global man
configuration file for Cygwin is /usr/share/misc/man.conf.  I don't know
whether Xman reads that...
	Igor

> It seems that it is not
> true for cygwin, or at least it does not use the NROFF string for
> calling nroff. I have modified the nroff script in order to force
> a -c option. Of course it is not a clean solution. The best thing to
> do is to include in the Xman resources the string it is used for
> calling nroff. If it is already there it should be documented in the
> man page.
> I hope that this comment could be useful.
>
> Rodrigo Medina.

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Re: Xman and nroff incompatibility

[Thomas Dickey]

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On Sat, Feb 21, 2004 at 12:57:22PM -0500, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Rodrigo Medina wrote:
> > understand the old style format. In order to obtain the old style
> > output one  has to call nroff with the -c option. Xman calls nroff
> > without the -c option. The man page of xman claims that in some
> > operative systems xman reads /etc/man.config.

not exactly:

BSD AND LINUX SYSTEMS
       In newer BSD and Linux systems, Xman  will  search  for  a  file  named
       /etc/man.conf  which  will  contain  the list of directories containing
       manual pages. See man.conf(5) for a complete description  of  the  file
       format.

The actual nroff command that's used is compiled into the code (and cannot
be reset with a resource).  It doesn't call "man", but uses nroff, etc.,
directly.
 
> FYI, Cygwin man doesn't use /etc/man.config.  I believe the global man
> configuration file for Cygwin is /usr/share/misc/man.conf.  I don't know
> whether Xman reads that...
> 	Igor

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

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Re: Xman and nroff incompatibility

[Rodrigo Medina]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:

>FYI, Cygwin man doesn't use /etc/man.config.  I believe the global man
>configuration file for Cygwin is /usr/share/misc/man.conf.  I don't know
>whether Xman reads that...
        Igor

Xman does not seem to be reading /etc/man.config nor
 /usr/share/misc/man.conf.  I had notice the difference, so I copied
/usr/share/misc/man.conf into /etc/man.config and have also put the -c
option in both files with no difference in the xman behavior. To be more
precise I am not sure if it reads the file for obtaining the MANPATH,
but in my case it does not make a difference because the MANPATH
environment variable is correct.

Rodrigo Medina