sure-fire man update method

[danboston]

So I had this happen again (in this example, I am demonstrating that the "git" program exists yet man cannot (or refuses to) see the man page:

[cboldt]

Short answer, periodically run `makewhatis -w`

Longer answer ...

There are a few possible ways the "whatis" database can get out of rig with the information on your system.

You probably have a file, /etc/cron.daily/makewhatis

If you have that, and you have cron running, and cron picks up and runs the files in /etc/cron.daily, then once a day, the command `makewhatis -u` is run. This adds new manpages to the whatis database, but does not remove entries for manpages that no longer exist. That is how apropos (which looks only at the database) reports a manpage, but man can't read a manpage, because there is no manpage.

I believe that Gentoo also runs `makewhatis -u` after installing every package. The command will be found in /etc/portage/bashrc -- I say "I believe on this only because I have modified /etc/portage/bashrc on my systems, and the original code is no longer operative. I don't care if the whatis database is updated "instantly," once a day is fine by me.

Back to the case of the whatis database having more entries than there are manpages, I had to manually add a periodic job to my cron routines, running `makewhatis -w` That runs only once a month, not that it takes very long either, it's just how I set things up. That cleans out the deadwood in the whatis database. I stuck that command in a homebrew cronjob that cleans the distfiles directory of deadwood package tarballs.

It is also possible to have a manpage, but even `makewhatis -w` doesn't add it to its database. The variable MANPATH has to account for all the places that makewhatis is supposed to search. I doubt your MANPATH is out of shape for a man page dedicated to the git programs.

MANPATH is set by entries in multiple files in /etc/env.d, and if not set there, see /etc/man.conf

Edit to add a few remarks about manpages for git. They are installed in directories off of /usr/share/man. I have 169 manpages relating to git, they are there ... `locate -r /man.*/git` I tested the man1/git.1 file, and it (and probably all the others) was installed by emerging git. I add this because you say you have git, but no manpages for git. If that is true, something is happening during the emerge process.

[Ant P.]

Are you using sys-apps/man-db or sys-apps/man? The latter is poorly maintained and you should switch, if it's the former then running `su -c /etc/cron.daily/man-db` should fix the problem.

[danboston]

Thanks for the replies.

Turns out things are wonkier than expected (as root):

[khayyam]

[danboston]