catman(1M) System Administration Commands catman(1M)NAMEcatman - create the formatted files for the reference manual
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/catman [-c] [-n] [-p] [-t] [-w] [-M directory]
[-T macro-package] [sections]
DESCRIPTION
The catman utility creates the preformatted versions of the on-line
manual from the nroff(1) or sgml(5) input files. This feature allows
easy distribution of the preformatted manual pages among a group of
associated machines (for example, with rdist(1)), since it makes the
directories of preformatted manual pages self-contained and independent
of the unformatted entries.
catman also creates the windex database file in the directories speci‐
fied by the MANPATH or the -M option. The windex database file is a
three column list consisting of a keyword, the reference page that the
keyword points to, and a line of text that describes the purpose of the
utility or interface documented on the reference page. Each keyword is
taken from the comma separated list of words on the NAME line before
the `−' (dash). The reference page that the keyword points to is the
first word on the NAME line. The text after the − on the NAME line is
the descriptive text in the third column. The NAME line must be immedi‐
ately preceded by the page heading line created by the .TH macro (see
NOTES for required format).
Each manual page is examined and those whose preformatted versions are
missing or out of date are recreated. If any changes are made, catman
recreates the windex database.
If a manual page is a shadow page, that is, it sources another manual
page for its contents, a symbolic link is made in the catx or fmtx
directory to the appropriate preformatted manual page.
Shadow files in an unformatted nroff source file are identified by the
first line being of the form .so manx/yyy.x.
Shadow files in the SGML sources are identified by the string
SHADOW_PAGE. The file entity declared in the shadow file identifies the
file to be sourced.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-c
Create unformatted nroff source files in the appropriate man subdi‐
rectories from the SGML sources. This option will overwrite any
existing file in the man directory of the same name as the SGML
file.
-n
Do not create (or recreate) the windex database. If the -n option
is specified, the windex database is not created and the apropos,
whatis, man -f, and man -k commands will fail.
-p
Print what would be done instead of doing it.
-t
Create troffed entries in the appropriate fmt subdirectories
instead of nroffing into the cat subdirectories.
-w
Only create the windex database that is used by whatis(1) and the
man(1)-f and -k options. No manual reformatting is done.
-M directory
Update manual pages located in the specified directory,
(/usr/share/man by default). If the -M option is specified, the
directory argument must not contain a `,' (comma), since a comma is
used to delineate section numbers. See man(1).
-T macro-package
Use macro-package in place of the standard manual page macros, (
man(5) by default).
OPERANDS
The following operand is supported:
sections
If there is one parameter not starting with a `−', it is taken to
be a space separated list of manual sections to be processed by
catman. If this operand is specified, only the manual sections in
the list will be processed. For example,
catman 1 2 3
only updates manual sections 1, 2, and 3. If specific sections are
not listed, all sections in the man directory specified by the
environment variable MANPATH are processed.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
TROFF
The name of the formatter to use when the -t flag is given. If not
set, troff(1) is used.
MANPATH
A colon-separated list of directories that are processed by catman
and man(1). Each directory can be followed by a comma-separated
list of sections. If set, its value overrides /usr/share/man as the
default directory search path, and the man.cf file as the default
section search path. The -M and -s flags, in turn, override these
values.
FILES
/usr/share/man
default manual directory location
/usr/share/man/man*/*.*
raw nroff input files
/usr/share/man/sman*/*.*
raw SGML input files
/usr/share/man/cat*/*.*
preformatted nroffed manual pages
/usr/share/man/fmt*/*.*
preformatted troffed manual pages
/usr/share/man/windex
table of contents and keyword database
/usr/lib/makewhatis
command script to make windex database
/usr/share/lib/tmac/an
default macro package
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │text/doctools │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│CSI │Enabled │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOapropos(1), man(1), nroff(1), rdist(1), rm(1), troff(1), whatis(1),
attributes(5), man(5), sgml(5)DIAGNOSTICS
man?/xxx.? (.so'ed from man?/yyy.?): No such file or directory
The file outside the parentheses is missing, and is referred to by
the file inside them.
target of .so in man?/xxx.? must be relative to /usr/man
catman only allows references to filenames that are relative to the
directory /usr/man.
opendir:man?: No such file or directory
A harmless warning message indicating that one of the directories
catman normally looks for is missing.
*.*: No such file or directory
A harmless warning message indicating catman came across an empty
directory.
WARNINGS
If a user, who has previously run catman to install the cat* directo‐
ries, upgrades the operating system, the entire cat* directory struc‐
ture should be removed prior to running catman. See rm(1).
Do not re-run catman to re-build the whatis database unless the com‐
plete set of man* directories is present. catman builds this windex
file based on the man* directories.
NOTES
To generate a valid windex index file, catman has certain requirements.
Within the individual man page file, catman requires two macro lines to
have a specific format. These are the .TH page heading line and the .SH
NAME line.
The .TH macro requires at least the first three arguments, that is, the
filename, section number, and the date. The .TH line starts off with
the .TH macro, followed by a space, the man page filename, a single
space, the section number, another single space, and the date. The date
should appear in double quotes and is specified as "day month year,"
with the month always abbreviated to the first three letters (Jan, Feb,
Mar, and so forth).
The .SH NAME macro, also known as the NAME line, must immediately fol‐
low the .TH line, with nothing in between those lines. No font changes
are permitted in the NAME line. The NAME line is immediately followed
by a line containing the man page filename; then shadow page names, if
applicable, separated by commas; a dash; and a brief summary statement.
These elements should all be on one line; no carriage returns are per‐
mitted.
An example of proper coding of these lines is:
.TH nismatch 1M "10 Apr 1998"
.SH NAME
nismatch, nisgrep \- utilities for searching NIS tables
SunOS 5.11 10 Dec 2009 catman(1M)
