Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Jack Duthen]

Problem #1:
----------
After I loaded a few cygwin packages, I got this:

$ man bash | wc
man: can't execute col: No such file or directory

The "man" command works perfectly when the stdout is NOT redirected,
but, when sent to a pipe or a file, the command "man" fails with the
above message.

Question #1:
Shouldn't the 'man' function/package depend on the 'col' function/package?

Problem #2
----------
To solve my 'man' problem,I tried to find the 'col' command.

I launched the standard interface (setup.exe) and entered 'col' in the
'Search' text field.

It gave me a list of packages, mainly related to 'colamd', 'colorgc',
'protocol' stuff, 'colored' stuff, 'texlive-collection' stuff,
'colordiff'...

but no clear link to the missing 'col.exe'.

I tried to put 'col[^A-Za-z]' in the 'Search' text field but it gave nothing.

Question #2:
Shouldn't the 'col.exe' function/package be referenced in some (clear) package?

Problem #3
----------
I googled it and found:
"Cannot locate col command in any current packages" at
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2002-04/msg00414.html

whose answer was (in 2002):

"Use this link to find out: http://www.cygwin.com/packages/"

So I went there, tried to search for 'col', found more than 1000
answers... useless...

Then I searched for '[^A-Za-z]col[^A-Za-z]' and  found 17 matches for
[^A-Za-z0-9_]col[^A-Za-z0-9_], mainly emacs stuff, glpk stuff,
singular-base stuff, texlive-collection stuff and...
the winner is: 'util-linux-2.21-1 - Random collection of Linux
utilities' which contains '/usr/bin/col.exe' among 178 lines.

Question #3
To get a 'man' that works when piped, is there a better way than
loading this "random" collection of utilities?

Am I the only one to get that problem???


)jack(

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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Marco Atzeri]

On 08/07/2014 17:47, Jack Duthen wrote:
> Problem #1:
> ----------
> After I loaded a few cygwin packages, I got this:
>
> $ man bash | wc
> man: can't execute col: No such file or directory
>
> The "man" command works perfectly when the stdout is NOT redirected,
> but, when sent to a pipe or a file, the command "man" fails with the
> above message.
>
> Question #1:
> Shouldn't the 'man' function/package depend on the 'col' function/package?
>
> Problem #2
> ----------
> To solve my 'man' problem,I tried to find the 'col' command.
>
> I launched the standard interface (setup.exe) and entered 'col' in the
> 'Search' text field.
>
> It gave me a list of packages, mainly related to 'colamd', 'colorgc',
> 'protocol' stuff, 'colored' stuff, 'texlive-collection' stuff,
> 'colordiff'...
>
> but no clear link to the missing 'col.exe'.

wrong way. Setup search only package names, not their content

Best with
https://cygwin.com/packages/
https://cygwin.com/cgi-bin2/package-grep.cgi?grep=col.exe&arch=x86

also with
$ cygcheck -p col.exe
Found 4 matches for col.exe
netpbm-10.61.02-1 - Toolkit for manipulation of graphic images
netpbm-debuginfo-10.61.02-1 - Debug information for Toolkit for 
manipulation of graphic images
util-linux-2.21.2-1 - Random collection of Linux utilities
util-linux-debuginfo-2.21.2-1 - Debug information for Random collection 
of Linux utilities

of course "col" is too short to be meaningful, "col.exe"
is a better catch.

> Question #3
> To get a 'man' that works when piped, is there a better way than
> loading this "random" collection of utilities?
>
> Am I the only one to get that problem???

util-linux is a popular package, so the issue was not yet noticed.

man was recently changed, so this dependency was likely missed,
specially as it seems hidden inside the man binary.

> )jack(
Marco



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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Chris J. Breisch]

At Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 12:15:22 PM, Marco Atzeri wrote:


> On 08/07/2014 17:47, Jack Duthen wrote:
>> Problem #1:
>> ----------
>> After I loaded a few cygwin packages, I got this:
>>
>> $ man bash | wc
>> man: can't execute col: No such file or directory
>>
>> The "man" command works perfectly when the stdout is NOT redirected,
>> but, when sent to a pipe or a file, the command "man" fails with the
>> above message.
>>
>> Question #1:
>> Shouldn't the 'man' function/package depend on the 'col' function/package?
>>
>> Problem #2
>> ----------
>> To solve my 'man' problem,I tried to find the 'col' command.
>>
>> I launched the standard interface (setup.exe) and entered 'col' in the
>> 'Search' text field.
>>
>> It gave me a list of packages, mainly related to 'colamd', 'colorgc',
>> 'protocol' stuff, 'colored' stuff, 'texlive-collection' stuff,
>> 'colordiff'...
>>
>> but no clear link to the missing 'col.exe'.

> wrong way. Setup search only package names, not their content

> Best with
> https://cygwin.com/packages/
> https://cygwin.com/cgi-bin2/package-grep.cgi?grep=col.exe&arch=x86

> also with
> $ cygcheck -p col.exe
> Found 4 matches for col.exe
> netpbm-10.61.02-1 - Toolkit for manipulation of graphic images
> netpbm-debuginfo-10.61.02-1 - Debug information for Toolkit for 
> manipulation of graphic images
> util-linux-2.21.2-1 - Random collection of Linux utilities
> util-linux-debuginfo-2.21.2-1 - Debug information for Random collection
> of Linux utilities

> of course "col" is too short to be meaningful, "col.exe"
> is a better catch.

>> Question #3
>> To get a 'man' that works when piped, is there a better way than
>> loading this "random" collection of utilities?
>>
>> Am I the only one to get that problem???

> util-linux is a popular package, so the issue was not yet noticed.

> man was recently changed, so this dependency was likely missed,
> specially as it seems hidden inside the man binary.

Yes,  this is true. I'll add it. I'm collecting a few things together,
and trying to get the DB creation to work a little faster as well.

-- 
 Chris J. Breisch



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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Yaakov Selkowitz]

On 2014-07-08 18:01, Chris J. Breisch wrote:
> At Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 12:15:22 PM, Marco Atzeri wrote:
>> On 08/07/2014 17:47, Jack Duthen wrote:
>>> Question #3
>>> To get a 'man' that works when piped, is there a better way than
>>> loading this "random" collection of utilities?
>>>
>>> Am I the only one to get that problem???
>
>> util-linux is a popular package, so the issue was not yet noticed.
>
>> man was recently changed, so this dependency was likely missed,
>> specially as it seems hidden inside the man binary.
>
> Yes,  this is true. I'll add it. I'm collecting a few things together,

Careful: right now util-linux requires: perl, so people will complain if 
it gets pulled as is.  I'll attempt to address this soon.

> and trying to get the DB creation to work a little faster as well.

That would be good, but there are some additional issues which make me 
think we should drop this from postinstall.


Yaakov


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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Chris J. Breisch]

At Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 8:16:41 PM, Yaakov Selkowitz wrote:

> On 2014-07-08 18:01, Chris J. Breisch wrote:
>> At Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 12:15:22 PM, Marco Atzeri wrote:
>>> On 08/07/2014 17:47, Jack Duthen wrote:
>>> util-linux is a popular package, so the issue was not yet noticed.
>>
>>> man was recently changed, so this dependency was likely missed,
>>> specially as it seems hidden inside the man binary.
>>
>> Yes,  this is true. I'll add it. I'm collecting a few things together,

> Careful: right now util-linux requires: perl, so people will complain if
> it gets pulled as is.  I'll attempt to address this soon.

Yes, I just noticed that.

>> and trying to get the DB creation to work a little faster as well.

> That would be good, but there are some additional issues which make me
> think we should drop this from postinstall.


I think I'm okay with that.

-- 
 Chris J. Breisch



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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Keith Christian]

There are other packages that require a bit of time post-install, such
as the texlive package.  Having the man-db package update the DB
immediately after install sounds like a good idea, even if it takes a
few minutes.

Else, end users that aren't familiar with re-creating the DB may be
discouraged at not finding something in the man pages.

That, or else use a non-blocking method of printing a message with the
DB creation command line.

On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 6:29 PM, Chris J. Breisch <chris.ml@breisch.org> wrote:
> At Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 8:16:41 PM, Yaakov Selkowitz wrote:
>
>> On 2014-07-08 18:01, Chris J. Breisch wrote:
>>> At Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 12:15:22 PM, Marco Atzeri wrote:
>>>> On 08/07/2014 17:47, Jack Duthen wrote:
>>>> util-linux is a popular package, so the issue was not yet noticed.
>>>
>>>> man was recently changed, so this dependency was likely missed,
>>>> specially as it seems hidden inside the man binary.
>>>
>>> Yes,  this is true. I'll add it. I'm collecting a few things together,
>
>> Careful: right now util-linux requires: perl, so people will complain if
>> it gets pulled as is.  I'll attempt to address this soon.
>
> Yes, I just noticed that.
>
>>> and trying to get the DB creation to work a little faster as well.
>
>> That would be good, but there are some additional issues which make me
>> think we should drop this from postinstall.
>
>
> I think I'm okay with that.
>
> --
>  Chris J. Breisch
>
>
>
> --
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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Yaakov Selkowitz]

On 2014-07-09 17:28, Keith Christian wrote:
> There are other packages that require a bit of time post-install, such
> as the texlive package.  Having the man-db package update the DB
> immediately after install sounds like a good idea, even if it takes a
> few minutes.

We're talking 20 minutes or more, which is IMO excessive.

> Else, end users that aren't familiar with re-creating the DB may be
> discouraged at not finding something in the man pages.
>
> That, or else use a non-blocking method of printing a message with the
> DB creation command line.

There is another issue: creating it during man-db's postinstall only 
helps for the manpages installed as of then; any pages added or updated 
afterwards won't get into the DB.  There is a way we could handle that 
(similar to _update-info-dir), but only if DB generation is faster.


Yaakov


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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Erwin Waterlander]

Op 10-7-2014 8:20 Yaakov Selkowitz schreef:
> On 2014-07-09 17:28, Keith Christian wrote:
>> There are other packages that require a bit of time post-install, such
>> as the texlive package.  Having the man-db package update the DB
>> immediately after install sounds like a good idea, even if it takes a
>> few minutes.
>
> We're talking 20 minutes or more, which is IMO excessive.
>
>> Else, end users that aren't familiar with re-creating the DB may be
>> discouraged at not finding something in the man pages.
>>
>> That, or else use a non-blocking method of printing a message with the
>> DB creation command line.
>
> There is another issue: creating it during man-db's postinstall only 
> helps for the manpages installed as of then; any pages added or 
> updated afterwards won't get into the DB.  There is a way we could 
> handle that (similar to _update-info-dir), but only if DB generation 
> is faster.
>

Isn't there an option that man-db grows a database cache while you are 
using it. Such that a page is added to the cache the first time you read 
a man page. Then you have a small extra delay only the first time. 
Usually people read only a small percentage of the man pages frequently. 
Caching all man pages is a bit excessive.

Man-db also displays non-cached man pages. What is the time difference 
between loading a cached or a non-cached page on Cygwin? Perhaps it's 
not worth caching.

regards,

-- 
Erwin Waterlander
http://waterlan.home.xs4all.nl/


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Re: Shouldn't 'man' depend on 'col'? Shouldn't 'col' be easier to find?

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Erwin Waterlander!

> Man-db also displays non-cached man pages. What is the time difference
> between loading a cached or a non-cached page on Cygwin? Perhaps it's 
> not worth caching.

It's not caching, it's indexing. For later keyword search, using apropos i.e.


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon@yandex.ru) 11.07.2014, <13:34>

Sorry for my terrible english...


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