Re: Subdirs of man*/ (was: [PATCH] ascii.7: chase down History to earliest) (refers: man -M tcl)

[наб]

Hi!

On Mon, Oct 17, 2022 at 01:10:51PM +0200, Alex Colomar wrote:
> [CC += groff@, since it was CCd in the old conversation referred to here]
> 
> Hi Ingo,
> 
> On 7/27/22 17:32, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> > Alejandro Colomar wrote on Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 06:17:40PM +0200:
> >> I wondered for a long time what happens if you create subdirs within a
> >> man? section.  How do man(1)s handle </usr/share/man/man3/python/foo.3>?
> > On *BSD systems, that typically means:
> >
> >    The architecture-specific library function foo(3)
> >    for the "python" hardware architecture.
> >
> > Here are a few examples from OpenBSD:
> >
> >    /usr/share/man/man1/sparc64/mksuncd.1
> >    /usr/share/man/man2/armv7/arm_sync_icache.2
> >    /usr/share/man/man2/i386/i386_iopl.2
> >    /usr/share/man/man3/octeon/cacheflush.3
> >    /usr/share/man/man3/sgi/get_fpc_csr.3
> >    /usr/share/man/man4/alpha/irongate.4
> >    /usr/share/man/man4/amd64/mpbios.4
> >    /usr/share/man/man4/luna88k/cbus.4
> >    /usr/share/man/man4/macppc/openpic.4
> >    /usr/share/man/man4/powerpc64/opalcons.4
> >    /usr/share/man/man4/riscv64/sfgpio.4
> >    /usr/share/man/man5/sparc64/ldom.conf.5
> >    /usr/share/man/man8/hppa/boot.8
> >    /usr/share/man/man8/macppc/pdisk.8
> >    /usr/share/man/man8/sgi/sgivol.8
> >    /usr/share/man/man8/sparc64/ldomctl.8
> 
> 
> On 10/17/22 03:22, наб wrote:
> > Cf., well, the UNIX Programmer's Manual:
> >    
> > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v1/UNIX_ProgrammersManual_Nov71.pdf
> > PDF page 191; yes, the typographical convention here is insane, and
> > the contemprary-correct way to refer to this page from within the manual
> > would be /just/ "/etc/ascii", but, given the context, "/etc/ascii (VII)"
> > makes the most sense to me
> 
> I just saw this and wondered if the subdirs in the past were used as just
> part of the manual page name...

This typographical convention disappeared as early as V2;
the top-right page numbers were all trimmed to basename space section
(/etc/ascii (VII)        becomes ascii (VII)
 /dev/tty0 ... tty5 (IV) becomes tty0 (IV)
 &c.)

Cf.
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v2/v2man.pdf

In the BSD side of the proverbial family tree I don't see anything
similar to what you describe until 4.4BSD which has bsd.man.mk MANSUBDIR
and uses it to install to MANDIR/manN/MANSUBDIR/page.N, and uses it
reasonably broadly for vax/sparc/whatever.
I think this is as present-day?

I don't see any on-line manuals in the SysIII/SysVr[1234] dumps I have,
so I assume these were distributed as books only, so idk.
Seeing as no arch-specific subdirectories survive in the illumos gate,
arch-only features are sometimes annotated "(not in 3B2)" inline,
and that the more esoteric pages have their center-top-page
(where you'd get "General Commands Manual" or whatever nowadays)
say like "(not on PDP-11)"/"(PDP-11 only)"/"(VAX stand-alone only)"/
"(3B20S only)" but are otherwise part of the same big book I assume
that never happened there.

Without context idk what you mean specifically but I hope this shines
some light or whatever.

Best,
наб

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