[Bug 216603] Environment variable MANLESS is described wrong in man(1)

[bugzilla-daemon@kernel.org]

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=216603

--- Comment #2 from karttu@gmail.com ---
Hi Alex, and Colin,

I've never reported any man page bugs before and I basically searched
"reporting man page bugs" and ended up at Reporting man-pages bugs
(kernel.org) <https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html>.
But of course man(1) is an exception :/

Found the issue reporting from GitLab, so it will be there.

Best Regards,
 - Arttu


On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 at 23:05, Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Arttu,
>
> On 10/18/22 21:55, bugzilla-daemon@kernel.org wrote:
> > https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=216603
> >
> >              Bug ID: 216603
> >             Summary: Environment variable MANLESS is described wrong in
> >                      man(1)
> >             Product: Documentation
> >             Version: unspecified
> >            Hardware: All
> >                  OS: Linux
> >              Status: NEW
> >            Severity: normal
> >            Priority: P1
> >           Component: man-pages
> >            Assignee: documentation_man-pages@kernel-bugs.osdl.org
> >            Reporter: karttu+bugzilla@gmail.com
> >          Regression: No
> >
> > In an example for setting MANLESS environment variable, man(1) claims:
> >
> >      For example, if you want to set the prompt string unconditionally
> >      to "my prompt string", set $MANLESS to '-Psmy prompt string'.
> >
> > However, this is not not correct as man uses the entire MANLESS variable
> > as a prompt for less.  I'll demonstrate:
> >
> >      $ MANLESS='-Ps(prompt)' man man
> >      <ctrl-z>
> >      $ cat /proc/$(pgrep -P $(pgrep -f "man man"))/environ |
> >      tr '\0' '\n' | grep "^LESS="
> >
> >      LESS=-ix8RmPm-Ps(prompt)$PM-Ps(prompt)$
> >
> > As seen, man(1) defines -Pm and -PM prompts using the MANLESS variable
> as is.
> > The same applies to the command line option -r:
> >
> >      $ man -r'-Ps(prompt)' man
> >      <ctrl-z>
> >      $ cat /proc/$(pgrep -P $(pgrep -f "man .* man"))/environ |
> >      tr '\0' '\n' | grep "^LESS="
> >
> >      LESS=-ix8RmPm-Ps(prompt)$PM-Ps(prompt)$
> >
> > Option -r does not make the same claim, but it says:
> >
> >      By default man sets the -ix8 options.
> >
> > Which also is a bit outdated as we can see it sets -ix8R.
> >
> > So in summary, at least the '-Ps' part should be removed from the MANLESS
> > description example.  Furthermore, option -r description could elaborate
> on
> > how LESS variable is formed (-ix8RmPm<MANLESS or -r>$PM<MANLESS or -r>$).
> >
> > Note: Dollar sign in less prompt definition is an end-of-string marker.
> >
>
> The man(1) page is part of the man-db project, not the Linux man-pages.
> Colin is the maintainer of man-db, so I CCd him.
>
> Their website is:
>
> <https://man-db.nongnu.org/>
>
> However, I'm curious about the resolution, so if you report it again in
> the man-db bug tracker (I guess that's their gitlab?  don't remember),
> please CC me. :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alex
>
> --
> <http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>
>

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