I found a way to achieve what I wanted :)
There is an option MKMAKEMANDB in mk.conf that does exactly what I want:
$ ldd `which apropos whatis`
/usr/bin/apropos:
-lc.12 => /usr/lib/libc.so.12
/usr/bin/whatis:
-lc.12 => /usr/lib/libc.so.12
$ file /usr/share/man/whatis.db
/usr/share/man/whatis.db: ASCII text, with very long lines (6084)
It also requires to change _mandb to whatdb in /etc/man.conf
On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 7:49 PM Vitaly Shevtsov <shev.vt1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Makes sense, Abhinav. Thanks for the clarification.
>
> On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 6:13 PM Abhinav Upadhyay
> <er.abhinav.upadh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 6:25 PM Vitaly Shevtsov <shev.vt1...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello!
> > >
> > > No, I'm not saying to remove sqlite from the base image completely. Of
> > > course not, since some binaris depend on it.
> > > My point is that Full Text Search for apropos and whatis was
> > > implemented for NetBSD by using sqlite in 2012 as GSOC. So I think now
> > > it's no longer needed for apropos/whatis since the modern mandoc
> >
> > The semantic search of mandoc's apropos(1) is not the same as "full
> > text search" of NetBSD's apropos(1).
> >
> > The mandoc apropos implementation works on expressions, where you can
> > specify a specific mdoc macro and its value. The search will produce
> > results containing man pages which satisfy that expression.
> >
> > On the other hand, NetBSD apropos will work like a typical search engine.
> >
> > I've never understood the usefulness of doing markup based search, it
> > expects the user to have an intimate knowledge of the mdoc macros to
> > effectively use it. But I might be biased.
> >
> > > supports semantic search using POSIX API only.
> >
> > We could implement full text search using POSIX APIs as well, but if
> > Sqlite gives it out of the box, it is extra maintenance work.
> >
> > -
> > Abhinav
