site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: darwin-dev@lists.apple.com --- So, the questions are: --- David _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Darwin-dev mailing list (Darwin-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/darwin-dev/site_archiver%40lists.appl... Abstract: Apple should remove all man pages, and replace man with something that can read the man pages contained in XCode (but where are the pages???) The standard man pages (obtained by running "man" from the command line are woefully out of date, and often are incorrect or missing information. I have dutifully submitted a few documentaion bugs on this, but was recently stunned when I read the reply to my latest submission (where I had suggested a one line addition to help future programmers find information that it took me 1/2 day to find). In essence, the reply was its not necessary, develops can always use google to find this information. Well, I HAD used google, but not the suggested "correct" string that got the correct hit. In my googling I found other people on this list and the darwin-users list who had also tried to get the same info and failed, so I knew it just wasn't me. rdar://5119334 Later, I was doing a simple make on the command line, and needed a printf format question answered. I did a "man 3 printf" and found it's incredibly out of date - it doesn't even have long long in it. Now, I happen to spend a lot of time in Terminal every day, and I often use "apropos" to find section 2 or section 3 functions. But once I have the page open, I really cannot count on the information being accurate as the pages are so out of date. So, I entered another bug, rdar://5128510 that suggests that Apple just get rid of all the man pages if they aren't going to keep them current. Really, if the company position is that these are not going to ever get updated, why leave them around for people like me to use, potentially incorrectly? I got a nice response to this bug, saying it would be forwarded to the appropriate group for discussion. Then today, it occurred to me that I could just write my own routine to output whatever XCode is using, so I can get the info from the terminal. So I went poking around trying to find printf(3). If you open this with the xCode document browser, you get what looks to be a temporary .html file that was translated from a man page format (open the page in the doc window, then right click and open it in a separate pane, then cmd-click on the icon at the top of the window). I did a "find /Developer -name '*printf*' -print" and all I get are printf.h files. 1) are the man pages that the xCode documentation window shows in a form that could be accessed outside of xCode? 2) if so, is there something that can already access them from the command line? 3) will apropos work with these files, or is there a similar tool that could do it? I posted to this group and not users, since its mostly developers, and non-cocoa developers, that want terminal access to man pages. In particular, xCode does not provide a way to search JUST man pages as apropos does, and I imagine its not just me that has found apropos very useful in locating information. if you feel strongly about this issue you could enter your own bug and reference the second rdar bug above. This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com