NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/comp/os/linux/23464

Text File | 1993-01-10 | 3.4 KB | 78 lines

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
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From: [e-mail] (Lars Wirzenius)
Subject: Re: Corrupt 'tar' man page
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Helsinki
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 13:48:26 GMT
Lines: 67

[e-mail] (Joseph R. Pannon) writes:
>Thanks, J. M., but that only is half the answer I need.  I want it to
>work under the 'man' program, just as the other pages that do work.  In
>other words, how can I convert that text into the format 'man' uses.

The first form of online docs for Unix was man pages.  They are nice,
but could be better.  One alternative format for man pages is Texinfo,
developed by the GNU Project.  Texinfo allows hypertext (links in the
text to other parts of the document), has better readers (that allow
following the links), not just less or more, and is better for writing
longer documents in the form of books.  Texinfo is the preferred
format of documentation for GNU programs, and the GNU people
ultimately want to have all documentation in that format.

Man pages and Texinfo are not compatible, and it is very non-trivial
to convert Texinfo to a man page (although the other way can be
automated).  Texinfo to man page conversion has to be done by hand.

Therefore, there is little chance that you can get man to understand
the Texinfo document.  You'll just have to live with two different
forms of documentation.  Life's a bitch.

>Or is tar a command that is 'not supposed' to have a 'man' doc format?

No, but it just doesn't have documentation in man page format (or does
it?  I can't remember that it does).  The reason it doesn't have a man
page, is either because nobody has written one, or possibly because
the author of GNU tar doesn't want to distribute two incompatible
forms of documentation.  I don't know which reason is true.

However, assuming it is because nobody has written a tar man page for
GNU tar, and you want it, you might want to remember how Linux has
become what it is: people who want something, and find that it hasn't
been done, do it themselves.  Doing something doesn't require knowing
everything, it shouldn't be too hard to write a very basic man page
for tar (after you know a little about tar).  Linux has not developed
thanks to people who pop into c.o.l and telling people that such and
such has to be done.

To get you started, the basic forms of usage for tar are

    tar -cvf tarfilename file1 file2 ...

        Create a tar file "tarfilename", put files "file1",
        "file2" into it.

    tar -tvf tarfilename

        Display a table of contents for the tar file.

    tar -xvf tarfilename

        Extract all files from a tar file.

And don't look at me, I'm perfectly fine with "tar +help" for all the
documentation I need, and I have better things to do than rewrite
existing documentation (such as writing new documentation).

If anybody writes a tar man page, and wants it to be included in the
Linux Doc set (when that becomes ready in a few years), send me a note
and I'll direct you to the person who coordinates the man pages and
other program specific documentation (I don't have his name handy at
the moment, sorry).

--
[e-mail]  (finger [e-mail])