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

[Alex Colomar]

[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...

I have been remembering every now and then the discussion we had about a 
hypothetical -M, and think we need it or something like that.  I guess 
subdirs are not possible nowadays because of the translation usage, but 
I'm curious about if that was different in the past or what.

Does anyone know?

Cheers,

Alex

> Signed-off-by: Ahelenia Ziemiańska <nabijaczleweli@nabijaczleweli.xyz>
> ---
>   man7/ascii.7 | 4 +---
>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 3 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/man7/ascii.7 b/man7/ascii.7
> index 1bba7bbaa..71e89384b 100644
> --- a/man7/ascii.7
> +++ b/man7/ascii.7
> @@ -134,9 +134,7 @@ F: / ? O _ o DEL
>   .fi
>   .SH NOTES
>   .SS History
> -An
> -.B ascii
> -manual page appeared in Version 7 of AT&T UNIX.
> +/etc/ascii (VII) appears in the UNIX Programmer's Manual.
>   .PP
>   On older terminals, the underscore code is displayed as a left arrow,
>   called backarrow, the caret is displayed as an up-arrow and the vertical

--
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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