Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:41:16 +0000 From: "Thomas Mueller" <mueller6722@twc.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A request to segregate man pages for shell built-ins References: <VI1PR02MB1200817E0E2CDD2A2A42E1A5F6440@VI1PR02MB1200.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com>
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from Manish Jain:
> Despite all the respect I have for the genius of Richard Stallman, I
> could never understand what use was his idea of info - man pages are
> what everyone needs, and nothing else.
> But I run into roughly the same weather with shell built-ins, most of
> which do not have their own man page. 'man set' rather blandly throws up
> the man page for the shell, and it takes an immense effort to glean the
> relevant information.
> Is it not possible to create separate man pages for the shell built-ins
> too ? Or at least ensure that invoking the built-in with --help gets the
> necessary information ?
> (Note : some built-ins (e.g. 'test') do have their own man pages)
I agree, info is a bummer, html would be better, but man works on the base system with no web browser, you don't even need lynx or elinks.
There is a pinfo port. Konqueror in KDE had a good info viewer. But still, sticking with man makes more sense.
If you run man on a shell builtin and get the man page for the shell, you can search through the man page on the desired command.
Tom
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