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Date:      Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:38:12 -0800
From:      Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Vikram Dhillon <dhillonv10@gmail.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD doc list <freebsd-doc@freebsd.org>, Gavin Atkinson <gavin@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Current unassigned doc problem reports
Message-ID:  <4B3A5AA4.1020507@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <ea6602020912290856x1224edc4g58f693b9e89d1d99@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <200912281106.nBSB67UA078764@freefall.freebsd.org>	<ea6602020912281038v356ee980qcd20bc6bb6bb0b27@mail.gmail.com>	<alpine.BSF.2.00.0912291319140.39885@ury.york.ac.uk> <ea6602020912290856x1224edc4g58f693b9e89d1d99@mail.gmail.com>

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Vikram Dhillon wrote:
> Thanks a lot for getting back to me, I see that there are some
> problems that involve writing a man-page. I don't know how to do that,
> can you please point me to some links that can help me in doing so.

There are example man page files in /usr/share/examples/mdoc. They
form a good basis to get you started. That's what I use whenever I
have to write one from scratch. Of course you can always read the
nroff and mdoc man pages, although they are pretty dense. There are
also a lot of good examples for "how do I do <something>?" in the man
pages in the base. In general it's better to avoid using the pages in
src/contrib as examples since they are not always "the state of the art."

To check the output of the page you're writing, you do this:
nroff -mdoc example.1 | more

After that it's basically a process of trial and error. :)  We have
some people who are quite good with nroff/mdoc who are always glad to
help.

Writing man pages is something that not a lot of people are willing to
tackle, so this is an area where help is particularly welcome.


Good luck,

Doug

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