man-db (2.12.0)
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NAME
catman - create or update the pre-formatted manual pages
SYNOPSIS
catman [-d?V] [-M path] [-C file] [section] ...
DESCRIPTION
catman is used to create an up to date set of pre-formatted manual pages known as cat pages. Cat pages are gen‐
erally much faster to display than the original manual pages, but require extra storage space. The decision to
support cat pages is that of the local administrator, who must provide suitable directories to contain them.
The options available to catman are the manual page hierarchies and sections to pre-format. The default hierar‐
chies are those specified as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration file, and the default sections are
either the colon-delimited contents of the environment variable $MANSECT or the standard set compiled into man if
$MANSECT is undefined. Supplying catman with a set of whitespace-delimited section names will override both of
the above.
catman makes use of the index database cache associated with each hierarchy to determine which files need to be
formatted.
OPTIONS
-d, --debug
Print debugging information.
-M path, --manpath=path
Specify an alternate colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path. By default, this is all paths in‐
dicated as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration file.
-C file, --config-file=file
Use this user configuration file rather than the default of ~/.manpath.
-?, --help
Print a help message and exit.
--usage
Print a short usage message and exit.
-V, --version
Display version information.
ENVIRONMENT
MANSECT
If $MANSECT is set, its value is a colon-delimited list of sections and it is used to determine which man‐
ual sections to search and in what order. The default is "1 n l 8 3 0 2 3type 5 4 9 6 7", unless overrid‐
den by the SECTION directive in /BuggyBox/man-db/2.12.0/any/etc/man_db.conf.
MANPATH
If $MANPATH is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path to
use.
See the SEARCH PATH section of manpath(5) for the default behaviour and details of how this environment
variable is handled.
FILES
/BuggyBox/man-db/2.12.0/any/etc/man_db.conf
man-db configuration file.
/usr/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
A traditional global index database cache.
/var/catman/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
An alternate or FSSTND compliant global index database cache.
SEE ALSO
man(1), manpath(5), mandb(8)
AUTHOR
Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).
Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).
BUGS
https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db/-/issues
https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db
2.12.0 2023-09-23 CATMAN(8)
NAME
catman - create or update the pre-formatted manual pages
SYNOPSIS
catman [-d?V] [-M path] [-C file] [section] ...
DESCRIPTION
catman is used to create an up to date set of pre-formatted manual pages known as cat pages. Cat pages are gen‐
erally much faster to display than the original manual pages, but require extra storage space. The decision to
support cat pages is that of the local administrator, who must provide suitable directories to contain them.
The options available to catman are the manual page hierarchies and sections to pre-format. The default hierar‐
chies are those specified as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration file, and the default sections are
either the colon-delimited contents of the environment variable $MANSECT or the standard set compiled into man if
$MANSECT is undefined. Supplying catman with a set of whitespace-delimited section names will override both of
the above.
catman makes use of the index database cache associated with each hierarchy to determine which files need to be
formatted.
OPTIONS
-d, --debug
Print debugging information.
-M path, --manpath=path
Specify an alternate colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path. By default, this is all paths in‐
dicated as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration file.
-C file, --config-file=file
Use this user configuration file rather than the default of ~/.manpath.
-?, --help
Print a help message and exit.
--usage
Print a short usage message and exit.
-V, --version
Display version information.
ENVIRONMENT
MANSECT
If $MANSECT is set, its value is a colon-delimited list of sections and it is used to determine which man‐
ual sections to search and in what order. The default is "1 n l 8 3 0 2 3type 5 4 9 6 7", unless overrid‐
den by the SECTION directive in /BuggyBox/man-db/2.12.0/any/etc/man_db.conf.
MANPATH
If $MANPATH is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path to
use.
See the SEARCH PATH section of manpath(5) for the default behaviour and details of how this environment
variable is handled.
FILES
/BuggyBox/man-db/2.12.0/any/etc/man_db.conf
man-db configuration file.
/usr/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
A traditional global index database cache.
/var/catman/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
An alternate or FSSTND compliant global index database cache.
SEE ALSO
man(1), manpath(5), mandb(8)
AUTHOR
Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).
Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).
BUGS
https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db/-/issues
https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db
2.12.0 2023-09-23 CATMAN(8)