Bug 6600

Summary:	man page suffixes
Product:	xorg	Reporter:	Jeremy C. Reed <reed>
Component:	Build/Modular	Assignee:	Gaetan Nadon <memsize>
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID	QA Contact:	Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity:	normal
Priority:	high	CC:	jeremyhu
Version:	7.0.0
Hardware:	x86 (IA32)
OS:	Linux (All)
Whiteboard:	2011BRB_Reviewed
i915 platform:		i915 features:

Description Jeremy C. Reed 2006-04-15 11:47:21 UTC

libX11 offers a configure switch called --enable-man-pages to allow setting the
suffix (but it is for "lib").

libXt sets it based on operating system or you can set LIB_MAN_SUFFIX,
APP_MAN_SUFFIX, etc.

Please consider just using a single suffix for all platforms, even .3x is not
common on Linux.

Then if someone really wants to diverge then they can set the *_MAN_SUFFIX
environment variables. Or add configure switches for this.

Comment 1 Jeremy C. Reed 2006-04-15 12:12:46 UTC

Changed the component to "modular build system".

Problem is also in libXpm.

I build and maintain packages for several operating systems
with the desire that they have near same installations so admins
and users can move between systems and have consistent environment.

Comment 2 Daniel Stone 2007-02-27 01:31:31 UTC

Sorry about the phenomenal bug spam, guys.  Adding xorg-team@ to the QA contact so bugs don't get lost in future.

Comment 3 Jeremy Huddleston Sequoia 2011-10-02 02:21:54 UTC

Gaetan, was this cleaned up during the recent years of util-macros work?

Comment 4 Gaetan Nadon 2011-10-02 07:56:28 UTC

What I understand is the reporter wishes all platforms had the same man pages suffix. No doubt it would be preferable, however it is outside the scope of X.Org.

First, we would have to adopt "a" standard to follow. Whatever man pages suffix we would follow, it would not be consistent with man pages from other projects.

Perhaps there is a GNU or Posix standard, it would take some research. 

The suffix is set in util-macros.m4.in.
I don't know where the .3x comes from. I noticed some distros/os
change the suffix chosen by x.org at build time.

Those who vary by platforms:

if test x$FILE_MAN_SUFFIX = x    ; then
    case $host_os in
	solaris*)	FILE_MAN_SUFFIX=4  ;;
	*)		FILE_MAN_SUFFIX=5  ;;
    esac
fi

if test x$MISC_MAN_SUFFIX = x    ; then
    case $host_os in
	solaris*)	MISC_MAN_SUFFIX=5  ;;
	*)		MISC_MAN_SUFFIX=7  ;;
    esac
fi

if test x$DRIVER_MAN_SUFFIX = x    ; then
    case $host_os in
	solaris*)	DRIVER_MAN_SUFFIX=7  ;;
	*)		DRIVER_MAN_SUFFIX=4  ;;
    esac
fi


if test x$ADMIN_MAN_SUFFIX = x    ; then
    case $host_os in
	solaris*)	ADMIN_MAN_SUFFIX=1m ;;
	*)		ADMIN_MAN_SUFFIX=8  ;;
    esac
fi

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