From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Wed Oct 25 08:42:17 2017 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8954BE42F78 for ; Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:42:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mueller6722@twc.com) Received: from dnvrco-cmomta03.email.rr.com (dnvrco-outbound-snat.email.rr.com [107.14.73.228]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "Client", Issuer "CA" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6A8D735E2 for ; Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:42:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mueller6722@twc.com) Received: from localhost ([74.134.208.22]) by cmsmtp with ESMTP id 7HGKejmQqe8Ia7HGMeefwM; Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:42:10 +0000 Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:41:16 +0000 From: "Thomas Mueller" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A request to segregate man pages for shell built-ins References: X-CMAE-Envelope: MS4wfHdUe4QO+7uZBJ/bOfW5jgKWCygVl9xqc97zIGiXQ+iNDZbRnZfAgbsSzTRW0QlJ0yTyUMOO8FLsmM6udy4eHECCaLkIcx+jd/TUjABdLArOL3qPUhEa 36dtH7yIMLMkvKpP2SEm6e99fjSmd6vW3bViiZ4yitb1+LS4FSFmUpGAypiBfdUMdVCCS7D/6uCraA== X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:42:17 -0000 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