Re: [NT] Problem with `man' function

[David Abrahams]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> From: Dave Abrahams <address@hidden>
>> Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 20:54:16 +0000 (UTC)
>> 
>> >     sed: -e expression #1, char 1: unknown command: `''
>> >     awk: '
>> >     awk: ^ invalid char ''' in expression
>> > 
>> >     process exited abnormally with code 1
>> > 
>> > The messages from Sed and Awk say quite unequivocally that the problem
>> > is with the quoting style: Windows shells and programs don't support
>> > the '..' quoting that man.el uses.
>> 
>> Using the other quoting made no difference whatsoever for me.
>> 
>> > I tried to replace '..' quoting with ".." quoting, but then bumped
>> > into other bugs, this time in Sed.  It sounds like the GnuWin32 port
>> > of Sed is hopelessly broken.  Or it could be a bug with cmdproxy.exe,
>> > I really don't have time to dig into that.
>> > 
>> > Perhaps with the Cygwin ports you have man.el will work if you replace
>> > '..' quoting with ".." quoting in the Sed and Awk scripts used by
>> > man.el.  Could you perhaps try that?
>> 
>> Tried it, to no avail.
>
> Please show the modified portion in man.el with this change.  Perhaps
> you didn't get all the escaping right.

I used the emacs customization interface, and so avoided all that.  I
just deleted the awk part.

>> > Failing that, I suggest to use woman.el.
>> 
>> Aww, this is discouraging.
>
> Why?  There's nothing man.el can do that woman.el cannot.

I know that song from somewhere... :)

>> Can't you suggest a place to breakpoint so we can look at what's
>> coming out of awk?
>
>>From the above error message it's clear that nothing comes out of Awk,
> since it barfs because of a syntax error.

Oh.

> But if you do manage to run Awk without an error message, just add a
> `message' line that displays its output after it returns.

Okay.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com