Re: Proposal to remove catman(8)

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Tue, 10 Nov 2020 11:14:12 +0100
    From:        Kamil Rytarowski <kamil%netbsd.org@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <ca45be8b-018c-ef0f-3330-14e4785eb851%netbsd.org@localhost>

  | If you still can find any man-page that is unsupported by mandoc, please
  | let me know and I will report it.

That was done (by someone else, sorry, I have forgotten who that was)
earlier in this thread.   groff_char(7)   Because it is an externally
maintained man page, we cannot just alter its format, and I really don't
think you're going to convince anyone to make mandoc handle:

  .  di CC
  .  ie c\\$3 \{\
  .    nop \\&\\$3\c
  .    \" The \x values assure that oversized symbols don't
  .    \" overlap vertically.  The constant 1.5p is heuristic.
  .    nop \x'(\w'('*0 - ((\\n[.cht]u - \\n[rst]u - 1.5p) >? 0))'\c
  .    nop \x'((\\n[.cdp]u + \\n[rsb]u - 1.5p) >? 0)'\c
  .    nop \h'(\\n[c1]u - \\n[.k]u)'\\*[CH]\c
  .    nop \h'(\\n[c2]u - \\n[.k]u)'\\$2\c
  .  \}
  .  el \{\
  .    nop (N/A)\c
  .    nop \h'(\\n[c1]u - \\n[.k]u)'\\*[CH]\c
  .  \}
  .  nop \h'(\\n[c3]u - \\n[.k]u)'\\$4\c
  .  nop \h'(\\n[c4]u - \\n[.k]u)'\\$5\c
  .  br
  .  di

[that's just one piece of a larger macro definition in that page]

On the other hand, after a simple

	groff -man -T ascii /usr/share/man/man7/groff_char.7 \
			  > /usr/share/man/cat7/groff_char.7

I now have a man page I can (better anyway) read.   If I had the time
to read up on all the groff -T options, it would probably be possible
yo make something quite readable.


  | Removal of the whole cat-pages support was implied

It wasn't.

  | and intended in my initial proposal.

That may have been, but that intent wasn't conveyed.

  | This was intended to be removed too. Also what's the point of catman(8)
  | if cat dirs were intended to be gone?

None, but those dirs should not be gone.   If I didn't have them, I wouldn't
have been able to to the command above, and that's a useful thing to be able
to do (as is the ability to install a "man page" when all you have is an
ascii hand-formatted text file).    And as long as the dirs remain, catman(8)
remains potentially useful.

  | The cat pages are passed through cat(1) and thus cannot be (easily)
  | reformatted dynamically.

You keep repeating that as if this is news.   You're not understanding
that I don't care.   I don't want them reformatted dynamically, or at all.

  | I don't want to drag regular users to mailing lists.

That's understandable, but you could at least delete the e-mail addresses
and names, and forward the actual complaint (along with a translation if
that is likely to be needed).

  | I was asked by mrg@ to revert the MKCATPAGES removal and add a new
  | proposal that is more precise.

Yes, I saw that, and that you agreed, that is a step forward (though I
personally have no problem with deleting the MKCATPAGES build option, and
the relevant set list entries).   But only that much.

kre