>Number:         3297
>Category:       bin
>Synopsis:       no catman/makewhatis, some comments about documentation
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    bin-bug-people (Utility Bug People)
>State:          open
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Mar  6 16:50:01 1997
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     System Era
>Organization:
People Who Are Not Old Enough for Unix (Honorary Member Emeritus)
>Release:        1.2
>Environment:
	Basically stock 1.2 #1 release, save perhaps for the fact that 
	I don't use csh
System: NetBSD hello 1.2 NetBSD 1.2 (GENERIC) #1: Wed Sep 11 00:43:55 CDT 1996 scottr@spot:/usr/src/sys/arch/mac68k/compile/GENERIC mac68k


>Description:
	1. I could find nothing for updating the whatis.db database,
	save for an obscure sed script in /usr/share/man. Is that it?
	How about a wrapper a la catman(1) and documentation?

	2. No description of the whatis.db format

	3. The whatis.db database as shipped contains lots of
	references to pages which are not actually included in the
	distribution. Good example: almost all the output from 
		fgrep 'device' /usr/share/man/whatis.db

	4. In search of a clue, I stumbled over a few undocumented
	switches in man(1):

	       $ strings /usr/bin/man | grep '^-' | head -1
		-aC:cfhkM:m:P:w

	       $ man -swededagly
		 man: illegal option -- s
		 usage: man [-achw] [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [section] title ...

	Ergo: Missing are -f, -k, and -P

	5. At one point after I had made my own whatis.db (but before
	adding _whatis /usr/local/man/whatis.db to man.conf) I noticed
	that man(1) would find my man pages in /usr/local whereas
	whatis(1) would not look for whatis.db in the same directory
	even if I didn't set up a $MANPATH. They both read man.conf,
	couldn't they grok it the same way too?


>How-To-Repeat:

>Fix:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: