[OS X TeX] MacTeX installer and man pages

[Robert Bruner]

Curmudgeon-At-Large Justin C. Walker wrote:

> Wouldn't it be better to add
> MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/man
> 
> to your conf file?  Packages have used both locations in "/usr/local"  
> for man pages, so the conf file seems like the best bet to keep  
> things working.  I have mine configured this way, and it does work.

No, you just want to add

     MANPATH /usr/local/man

Justin, I am guessing that you don't have anything in /usr/local/share/man/ 
or if you do, your MANPATH_MAP line is working for other reasons, of
which several are possible.  Evidence as follows.

My experiments show that only one MANPATH_MAP entry per executable
directory is actually used.  So if you have

     MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/man
     MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/share/man

then (if /usr/local/bin is in your path) /usr/local/man will be searched for
man pages, but /usr/local/share/man will not, whereas if you have them in
the opposite order,

     MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/share/man
     MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/man

then the reverse happens.  Use the -d option of man to observe this in action.
Here's what "man -d gv" shows (gv.1 is the unique file in my /usr/local/man/man1).
My system has no /usr/local/share/man directory, and the effect of this is shown
below.  When my man.conf has the first pair above, man -d shows

     ....... omitting irrelevant lines ........
     found manpath map /usr/local/bin --> /usr/local/man
     found manpath map /usr/local/bin --> /usr/local/share/man
     ....... omitting irrelevant lines ........
     
     path directory /usr/local/bin is in the config file
     adding /usr/local/man to manpath
     ....... omitting irrelevant lines ........

so the first MANPATH_MAP line has had an effect, but the second is
ignored. One might conjecture that this is because the directory is absent,
but reversing the order gets you

     ....... omitting irrelevant lines ........
     found manpath map /usr/local/bin --> /usr/local/share/man
     found manpath map /usr/local/bin --> /usr/local/man
     ....... omitting irrelevant lines ........
     
     path directory /usr/local/bin is in the config file

     ....... omitting irrelevant lines ........

showing that the line referring to the nonexistent tree has taken
effect, but does nothing to MANPATH since the directory does not exist,
and that the second line, referring to the existing tree, was not used.

Thanks to all of you who so kindly answer questions all and sundry, and
who have written such handy tools for TeX on Mac OS X,

Bob Bruner


------------------------------|--------------------------------
Robert R. Bruner, Professor    (313)-577-3179 (office)         |
Department of Mathematics      (313)-577-2479 (department)     |
Wayne State University         (313)-577-7596 (fax, shared)    |
Detroit, Michigan  48202       rrb at math.wayne.edu              |
USA                            http://www.math.wayne.edu/~rrb  |
------------------------------|--------------------------------

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