"Greg A. Woods" <woods@weird.com> output:
:Wouldn't it be better to simply avoid the "cat" version entirely if the
:source file for the same page is present?

Probably.

:>  The parsing on the man version also sometimes
:> 	doesn't work and loses the version information (e.g. on man1/man.1)
:Did you mean "section information"?  

Yes, indeed.

:If so then that must be a "new" bug since 1.6.x:
:$ apropos on-line
:man (1) - display the on-line manual pages (aka ``man pages'')

Does the 1.6 makewhatis still use getNAME?

% mkdir -p /tmp/man/man1
% cp /usr/share/man/man1/man.1 /tmp/man/man1
% /usr/libexec/makewhatis /tmp/man
% cat /tmp/man/whatis.db
man -- display the on-line manual pages (aka ``man pages'')
% /usr/libexec/getNAME /tmp/man/man1/man.1
man (1) - display the on-line manual pages aka Dq Em man pages

I guess makewhatis and getNAME need features from each other.

Geoff