# 2.11BSD#431 - /usr/man/cat8/catman.0

    CATMAN(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual		CATMAN(8)

    NAME
         catman - create the cat files for the manual

    SYNOPSIS
         /usr/sbin/catman [ -p ] [ -n ] [ -w ] [ -M path ] [ sections
         ]

    DESCRIPTION
         Catman creates the preformatted versions of the on-line
         manual from the nroff input files.  Each manual page is
         examined and those whose preformatted versions are missing
         or out of date are recreated.  If any changes are made, cat-
         man will recreate the whatis database.

         If there is one parameter not starting with a `-', it is
         taken to be a list of manual sections to look in.	For exam-
         ple

    	  catman 123

         will cause the updating to only happen to manual sections 1,
         2, and 3.

         Options:

         -n   prevents creations of the whatis database.

         -p   prints what would be done instead of doing it.

         -w   causes only the whatis database to be created.  No
    	  manual reformatting is done.

         -M   updates manual pages located in the set of directories
    	  specified by path (/usr/man by default).  Path has the
    	  form of a colon (`:') separated list of directory
    	  names, for example `/usr/local/man:/usr/man'.  If the
    	  environment variable `MANPATH' is set, its value is
    	  used for the default path.

         If the nroff source file contains only a line of the form
         `.so manx/yyy.x', a symbolic link is made in the catx direc-
         tory to the appropriate preformatted manual page.	This
         feature allows easy distribution of the preformatted manual
         pages among a group of associated machines with rdist(1).
         The nroff sources need not be distributed to all machines,
         thus saving the associated disk space.  As an example, con-
         sider a local network with 5 machines, called mach1 through
         mach5.  Suppose mach3 has the manual page nroff sources.
         Every night, mach3 runs catman via cron(8) and later runs
         rdist with a distfile that looks like:

    Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			1

    CATMAN(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual		CATMAN(8)

    	  MANSLAVES = ( mach1 mach2 mach4 mach5 )

    	  MANUALS = (/usr/man/cat[1-8no] /usr/man/whatis)

    	  ${MANUALS} -> ${MANSLAVES}
    		  install -R;
    		  notify root;

    FILES
         /usr/man		    default manual directory location
         /usr/man/man?/*.*	    raw (nroff input) manual sections
         /usr/man/cat?/*.*	    preformatted manual pages
         /usr/man/whatis	    whatis database
         /usr/sbin/makewhatis   command script to make whatis database

    SEE ALSO
         man(1), cron(8), rdist(1)

    BUGS
         Acts oddly on nights with full moons.

         The need for catman(8) is almost but not quite gone.  Most
         of the manpages have been moved out of /usr/src/man into the
         sourcecode hierarchy.  The recreation of the whatis database
         is the main use of catman now.

    Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			2

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