CATMAN(8) Manual pager utils 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 generally much faster to dis-
play than the original manual pages, but require extra storage space. The decision to support cat pages is that of the local administra-
tor, 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 hierarchies 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 sec-
tion 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 indicated as system hierar-
chies 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 manual sections to search and
in what order.
MANPATH
If $MANPATH is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path to use.
FILES
/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).
2.6.3 2012-09-17 CATMAN(8)