On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:51:45PM +0000, ropers wrote: > 2008/9/20 Ingo Schwarze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > In OpenBSD, most shell builtins and shell command aliases do not have > > their own man page or man page symlink. Such symlinks should not be > > added: Many shells have similar builtins, so which shell's man page > > would you link? > > Would it be useful to have man pages for built-ins, but make those man > pages disambiguation pages that explain that the command in question > is a shell built-in command, and how to find the relevant info on the > respective shell's main man page? > > Another idea would be to make man look at $SHELL and serve up a > relevant man page on that basis. This would require adding that logic > to man though. > > regards, > --ropers
originally, we did have MLINKS for some shell builtins, and i think they pointed to ksh(1) (may have been csh(1) though, i can;t remember). anyway, the situation was unsatisfactory because not everyone uses ksh (or csh) and secondly have a look at how many builtins are listed in ksh. quite a few, and not all of them exist on other shells. a separate man page per builtin would be nuts. using MLINKS is unworkable. the only think i thought possible was a man page which said "this is a builtin, see your shell man page" and MLINK to it. but that's crazy too. just read your shell's man page. jmc
