From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-alma10-1.taild15c8.ts.net [100.103.45.18]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B292C2E3FE for ; Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:13:59 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1789085640; cv=none; b=L61iKWfcUGye9qXgSyRc15S9MKTMJov/MtIDRsq1eohZ2fXI7pIytQAOL03LyQEqtKEAAbeO79vvKaTv7Ow4oGA9sU3FPkwOEfbJvx0B+1AMZ6qFh5yE4E/nSbBTXjhal1rjljOmRdH9+lxZ5MdnSPdX1BRpDT+vl6HP9KOb/5k= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1789085640; c=relaxed/simple; bh=qIpZa/zoJR23PbVIgjow4XKMcEPt5NkqfbBQENztzl0=; h=Date:From:To:Subject:Message-ID:MIME-Version:Content-Type: Content-Disposition; b=pjhQXyTu0SKQ7IVEgUndSU9BvaAbjZlfdmkiZCbuCFa6bCOZDKTxogbNhK5D3Da4IMmKPyBAcjSl0lzVa2c8NXnKpH8wDOBlrw+f2yBNTEgLrSZkJJNrGpjg4yDzy+K+hF7kSntblx8qh+PjTTw6qL7BA1cMGlzO/FZmU3t1t5k= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=mxr+KWYd; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="mxr+KWYd" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 9D9A01F000FF; Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:13:58 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=kernel.org; s=k20260515; t=1789085639; bh=L6r4aUf/cS2c2wcl6y7MTjR0gkq3asuDORP+IhEA5zg=; h=Date:From:To:Subject; b=mxr+KWYdVx330gyoKEbLOr94D569+onMkZMRpdUha3ZufEREJSH7jKV2j9BRgAB1q BBvxaVEd5p5Rs35YuWQB5b58m4yR21YOFy+3u82Pg2xnu+7jtpX2D24WFwzAZKqy0W CQ1/xSpyQ+v4FXl5DlZs/CFOJoHyc+WkfNRYTaDzk29/DP1PYtimVShW1FdOkkvFhT plMF7Xvhq47yUeSY0fXdF78n1YCJBLmjdSSf6Rvy1xMY5X/XHTwHgGQKpXaZ4GMgZp eJ3Q9aox+JceU4PAGQHyVt0D9DfuzZFplsUmAwClQ7bGEhXmw4ZePjlSVXwjX0devU 7L/ShFHZZ9hbQ== Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2026 02:13:55 +0200 From: Alejandro Colomar To: linux-man@vger.kernel.org, man-db-devel@nongnu.org Subject: Spaces, underscores, and dashes in manual page names when using man(1) Message-ID: Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-man@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="ndpsva65xnlx7noe" Content-Disposition: inline --ndpsva65xnlx7noe Content-Type: text/plain; protected-headers=v1; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: Alejandro Colomar To: linux-man@vger.kernel.org, man-db-devel@nongnu.org Subject: Spaces, underscores, and dashes in manual page names when using man(1) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Hi Colin, I find this quite intriguing. Using a space in place of an underscore in the name of a manual page seems to work, but using two seems to not work. This seems inconsistent. I'd say this should either work for any and/or all spaces, or for none of them. $ man -aw proc_sys_fs_inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys_fs_inotify.5 $ man -aw proc sys_fs_inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys_fs_inotify.5 $ man -aw proc_sys fs_inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys_fs_inotify.5 $ man -aw proc_sys_fs inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys_fs_inotify.5 $ man -aw proc sys fs_inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc_sys.5.gz No manual entry for fs_inotify $ man -aw proc sys_fs inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys_fs.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc_sys_fs.5.gz /usr/local/man/man7/inotify.7 /usr/share/man/man7/inotify.7.gz $ man -aw proc_sys fs inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys_fs.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc_sys_fs.5.gz /usr/local/man/man7/inotify.7 /usr/share/man/man7/inotify.7.gz $ man -aw proc sys fs inotify /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sys.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc_sys.5.gz /usr/local/share/man/man5/filesystems.5 /usr/share/man/man5/filesystems.5.gz /usr/local/man/man7/inotify.7 /usr/share/man/man7/inotify.7.gz The same thing happens with dashes: $ man -aw user-session-keyring /usr/local/man/man7/user-session-keyring.7 /usr/share/man/man7/user-session-keyring.7.gz $ man -aw user session-keyring /usr/local/man/man7/user-session-keyring.7 /usr/share/man/man7/user-session-keyring.7.gz $ man -aw user-session keyring /usr/local/man/man7/user-session-keyring.7 /usr/share/man/man7/user-session-keyring.7.gz $ man -aw user session keyring No manual entry for user /usr/local/man/man7/session-keyring.7 /usr/share/man/man7/session-keyring.7.gz And also with combinations: alx@devuan:~/src/linux/man-pages/man-pages/contrib$ man -aw proc_sysrq-tri= gger /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sysrq-trigger.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc_sysrq-trigger.5.gz alx@devuan:~/src/linux/man-pages/man-pages/contrib$ man -aw proc sysrq-tri= gger /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sysrq-trigger.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc_sysrq-trigger.5.gz alx@devuan:~/src/linux/man-pages/man-pages/contrib$ man -aw proc_sysrq tri= gger /usr/local/man/man5/proc_sysrq-trigger.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc_sysrq-trigger.5.gz alx@devuan:~/src/linux/man-pages/man-pages/contrib$ man -aw proc sysrq tri= gger /usr/local/man/man5/proc.5 /usr/share/man/man5/proc.5.gz No manual entry for sysrq No manual entry for trigger The (one) space is well-known to work, and helps find documentation for things like 'git diff' as 'man git diff', so that behavior should stay. I suspect we also want to make it work for more than one space, though. Or are there any important issues with handling more than one space? Here's the version of man-db I have installed (Devuan unstable): $ dpkg -l man-db | tail -n1 ii man-db 2.13.1-1 amd64 tools for reading manual pages Have a lovely night! 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