standards/39448: Bug in man.conf -> Manual page paths longer than 3 main subdirectories are ignored

[saskia%sa5kia.nl@localhost]

>Number:         39448
>Category:       standards
>Synopsis:       Bug in man.conf -> Manual page paths longer than 3 main 
>subdirectories are ignored
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    standards-manager
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Sep 02 02:30:00 +0000 2008
>Originator:     Saskia van Schagen
>Release:        4.0
>Organization:
sa5kia
>Environment:
NetBSD sa5kia 4.0 NetBSD 4.0 (GENERIC) #0: Sun Dec 16 00:20:10 PST 2007  
builds@wb34:/home/builds/ab/netbsd-4-0-RELEASE/i386/200712160005Z-obj/home/builds/ab/netbsd-4-0-RELEASE/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
 i386
>Description:
With lots of Sun Solaris expierience and a newbe with NetBSD, I have struggled 
for 2 hours with my MANPATH. After finding out the MANPATH variable overwrites 
existing manpaths completely (because apperently, for some strange reason, the 
variable is not set by default), I found the /etc/man.conf file. But in this 
file there is a bug: Only paths with 2 subdirectories before the "man" 
subdirectory may be specified, otherwise they (longer directories) will be 
completely ignored. For example, a directory like /usr/apache2/man is ok, but 
having the manpages in in /usr/local/apache2/man, then its impossible to put 
them in the man.conf and have them working. This is very irritating, cause I 
might not want to install software AND their manpages directly in a root 
directory, but now, I just HAVE to...

Furthermore, I have NetBSD since yesterday and I'm already a big fan, I love 
your OS, so much better then the messy Solaris... No bullshit, no trash, just 
straith to the point and secure, I love it!!
>How-To-Repeat:
Put /usr/apache2/man in the /etc/man.conf and "man httpd" will work. BUT: 
Having the manpages in /usr/apache2/man and then put /usr/local/apache2/man in 
/etc/man.conf and "man httpd" won't work...
>Fix:
I couldn't find any fix or anybody else on the internet having the same 
problem, very strange...