Re: undocumented(7)
On Sun, 08 Jul 2001 at 20:21:09 +0200, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org> writes:
> > undocumented(7) is in the manpages package (Priority: important).
> > It seems sensible to allow users to remove this package without
> > breaking anything, and if they care enough to remove the manpages
> > package, they probably won't miss undocumented(7).
>
> Wouldn't it be better to just move undocumented(7) (it's 1415 bytes,
> FWIW) to man-db? This way all users of "man" would have it.
*sigh* There are multiple man browsers in Debian: gman, gnome-help,
konqueror, and tkman all provide man-browser, and coolman should. It's
inappropriate to put something used by all of them into man-db just
because it's the one most people use.
> Thinking a bit further ... symlinking to undocumented is often frowned
> upon, because it muddles up the issue (and novice packagers often
> conveniently think that it is a permanent solution), and sometimes
> raises false expectations (i.e. I install a package, look at "dpkg -L"
> output, think: fine, a manpage is provided). Sooo, why not patch the
> man binary to issue a more helpful message?
>
> I.e. if manpage FOO was sought, and FOO exists in {,/usr}/{,s}bin:
> No manual entry for FOO
> This is probably a bug you should report.
> In the mean time, please try to find usage information through other
> means -- try "man undocumented" if you are unsure.
It seems a bit silly, because, well, that's what undocumented(7) says
except in less detail. It also seems like more cruft in the already
crufty man binary. Feel free to write a patch if you think it's useful,
though, but you'll need to get all manual browsers changed before policy
13.1 can properly be amended.
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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