Subject: Re: Bug#3520: Manpages netpbm show up double

From: "James A. Robinson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 07 Jul 1996 19:30:56 -0400

> This thing of manpages showing up double was my own mistake. I did purge
> pbmplus before installing, and I did ran 'mandb' after installing netpbm,
> but I *DIDN'T* run 'mandb -c' to newly create the database.
> 
> Sorry if I have caused to much useless work already.

Well, this is a problem for either netpbm or for mandb.  The user
should not have to run "mandb -c" to make apropos work again.  Can
mandb be set to automatically detect missing manpages and recreate the
database?  Or should netpbm recreate the man database in the postinst?

Jim

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From: Maarten Boekhold <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 02:45:24 +0200 (MET DST)

Maarten

_______________________________________________________________________
| Maarten Boekhold, Faculty of Electrical Engineering TU Delft,   NL  |
|   [email-masked] [email-masked]   |
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From: Alvar Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 10:50:37 +0000

>>>>> "James" == James A Robinson <[email-masked]> writes:

    >> Sorry if I have caused to much useless work already.

    James> Well, this is a problem for either netpbm or for mandb.  The user
    James> should not have to run "mandb -c" to make apropos work again.  Can
    James> mandb be set to automatically detect missing manpages and recreate the
    James> database?  Or should netpbm recreate the man database in the postinst?

Sorry. I havent really been following this thread too closely but to
comment on the above ...

Indeed the user should never have to run mandb by hand.  Whenever the
man command is run it should rebuild the index if it detects any new
man pages have been added. (it uses dir timestamps etc to do this)

So after adding a man page the fist invocation of man anything by
anybody should update the database for everybody. 

The only package that should rebuild the database is the man package
itself. 

At all other times man/apropos etc should just DTRT (unless of course
you know better ... :)

alvar       (man package maintainer)

-- 
Alvar Bray

Meiko Limited, 2440 The Quadrant, Aztec West, Bristol BS12 4QJ, England.
Phone:  +44 1454 855222   Fax:   +44 1454 855223     
E-Mail: [email-masked] [email-masked] [email-masked]

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From: "James A. Robinson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 14:13:40 -0400

> Sorry. I havent really been following this thread too closely but to

Ok, the problem was noticed when one person installed pbmplus, which
has manpages like pbmtoxpm.1, and then purged pbmplus and installed
netpbm, which has manpages like pbmtoxpm.1netpbm.  When he ran apropos
pbmtoxpm, he got

	pbmtoxpm (1)		- this is a program
	pbmtoxpm (1netpbm)	- this is a program

And of course, pbmtoxpm.1 didn't really exist.  

> The only package that should rebuild the database is the man package

I agree.  Well, if it is ok with you, until this is fixed with man, I
will have netpbm explain the problem and ask the use whether or not he
wants to rebuild the database.

Jim

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From: Maarten Boekhold <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:39:23 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi,

I think the problem here is that man doesn't recreate the database after 
it has detected new manpages. It *does* update it database thought. I 
think recreating the stuff takes lots more time then just adding unknown 
pages.

Maarten

_____________________________________________________________________________
|     Maarten Boekhold, Faculty of Electrical Engineering TU Delft,   NL    |
|      [email-masked]   [email-masked]     |
|		          Rave or Die!!!!!!                                 |
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From: Alvar Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:49:40 +0000

>>>>> "Maarten" == Maarten Boekhold <[email-masked]> writes:

    Maarten> Hi,

    Maarten> I think the problem here is that man doesn't recreate the database after 
    Maarten> it has detected new manpages. It *does* update it database thought. I 
    Maarten> think recreating the stuff takes lots more time then just adding unknown 
    Maarten> pages.

This is indeed the case. 

Its not clear to me what the correct solution should be. Recreating
the database from scratch takes quite some time. 

Maybe mandb -c should be run each night by cron to rebuild the
database. This would leaving the database with possible phantom
entries for at most a day. 

Maybe dpkg/dselect should [ask?] to run mandb -c before it exits.

What do people think the correct behaviour should be?

alvar 

-- 
Alvar Bray

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From: Maarten Boekhold <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 11:03:33 +0200 (MET DST)

> entries for at most a day. 

Many ppl don't leave there systems on all the time. My system is in my 
bedroom, and when I go to sleep I turn it of. This misses most 
'midnights' :). This also means that a lot of cronjobs don't get run at 
my place.... maybe a script that runs every missed cronjob would be 
usefull as well.

Maarten

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From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 96 13:58 BST

Alvar Bray writes [ SuperCite undone - iwj ]:
> Maarten Boekhold <[email-masked]> writes:

How about having apropos and whatis check to see if the manpage
they're about to print info about actually exists ?

If it doesn't they could either leave out the info, or run a check on
all the files listed to remove stale entries.

Ian.

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From: Chris Fearnley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 16:02:40 -0400 (EDT)

'Alvar Bray wrote:'
>What do people think the correct behaviour should be?

I don't think we need any manpage database management at all.  If I
ever get a chance, I'll make an alternative man package that uses
Andries' man program which I feel works faster and has none of the
constant stream of problems that mandb has had.  Then again it hasn't
received "the Debian Workout" :)

If I were thinking of desining a man system, I would consider a client
server solution.  Where the server would keep a database in RAM and
the man clients would ask it for appropriate man pages.  Then someone
could complain about my design :)

-- 
Christopher J. Fearnley            |    Linux/Internet Consulting
[email-masked], [email-masked]       |    UNIX SIG Leader at PACS
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ftp://ftp.netaxs.com/people/cjf    |    Design Science Revolutionary
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