man2html(1)                                                   General Commands Manual                                                  man2html(1)

NAME

       man2html - format a manual page in html

SYNOPSIS

       man2html [options] [file]

DESCRIPTION

       man2html  converts  a manual page as found in file (or stdin, in case no file argument, or the argument "-", is given) from man-style nroff
       into html, and prints the result on stdout.  It does support tbl but does not know about eqn.  The exit status  is  0.  If  something  goes
       wrong, an error page is printed on stdout.

       This  can  be used as a stand-alone utility, but is mainly intended as an auxiliary, to enable users to browse their man pages using a html
       browser like lynx(1), xmosaic(1) or netscape(1).

       The main part of man2html is the troff-to-html engine written by Richard Verhoeven (rcb5@win.tue.nl).  It adds hyperlinks for the following
       constructs:

       foo(3x)           "http://localhost/cgi-bin/man/man2html?3x+foo"
       method://string   "method://string"
       www.host.name     "http://www.host.name"
       ftp.host.name     "ftp://ftp.host.name"
       name@host         "mailto:name@host"
       <string.h>        "file:/usr/include/string.h"

       (The  first  of  these  can  be tuned by options - see below.)  No lookup is done - the links generated need not exist.  Also an index with
       internal hyperlinks to the various sections is generated, so that it is easier to find one's way in large man pages like bash(1).

OPTIONS

       When reading from stdin, it is not always clear how to do .so expansion. The -D option allows a script to define the working directory.

       -D pathname
              Strip the last two parts from the pathname, and do a chdir(dir) before starting the conversion.

       The -E option allows the easy generation of error messages from a cgi script.

       -E string
              Output an error page containing the given error message.

       The general form of a hyperlink generated for a man page reference is

              <method:cgipath><man2htmlpath><separator><manpage>

       with a default as shown above. The parts of this hyperlink are set using the various options.

       -h     Set method:cgipath to http://localhost.

       -H host[.domain][:port]
              Set method:cgipath to http://host.domain:port.

       -l     Set method:cgipath to lynxcgi:/usr/lib.

       -L dir Set method:cgipath to lynxcgi:dir.

       -M man2htmlpath
              Set the man2htmlpath to use. The default is /cgi-bin/man/man2html.

       -p     Set separator to '/'.

       -q     Set separator to '?'. This is the default.

       -r     Use relative html paths, instead of cgi-bin paths.

       On a machine without running httpd, one can use lynx to browse the man pages, using the lynxcgi method.  When some http daemon is  running,
       lynx,  or  any other browser, can be used to browse the man pages, using the http method.  The option -l (for `lynxcgi') selects the former
       behaviour.  With it, the default cgipath is /usr/lib.

       In general, a cgi script can be called by

              <path_to_script>/<more_path>?<query>

       and the environment variables PATH_INFO and QUERY_STRING will be set to <more_path> and <query>, respectively.  Since lynxcgi does not han-
       dle  the PATH_INFO part, we generate hyperlinks with `?' as a separator by default.  The option -p (for `path') selects '/' as a separator,
       while the option -q (for `query') selects '?' as a separator.

       The option -H host will specify the host to use (instead of localhost).  A cgi script could use

              man2html -H $SERVER_NAME

       if the variable SERVER_NAME is set.  This would allow your machine to act as a server and export man pages.

BUGS

       There are many heuristics.  The output will not always be perfect.  The lynxcgi method will not work if lynx was compiled without selecting
       support for it.  There may be problems with security.

AUTHOR

       Richard  Verhoeven  was  the  original  author  of  man2html.   Michael Hamilton and Andries Brouwer subsequently improved on it.  Federico
       Lucifredi <flucifredi@acm.org> is the current maintainer.

SEE ALSO

       lynx(1), man(1), hman(1)

                                                                  1 January 1998                                                       man2html(1)