On Sun, 24 Mar 2024, American Citizen wrote:
Paul:
Thanks for your post. Exactly what would you consider a valid statement for
locating the executables?
Finding executable files is not, to my mind, the same as find
executable files for which I'd expect a man page.
I'd suppose expect a man page for most occupants of
* /bin
* /usr/bin
* /usr/sbin
* /sbin
Some denizens of /usr/libexec might warrant man pages too.
One problem is that a lot of files in /usr/bin are symlinks or wrapper
scripts; I'm not sure there's any "right" way to deal with them.
Another problem is utilities that are often superceded by shell
builtin commands. Most people don't run /usr/bin/test; they use the
shell builtin 'test' or '['. So a man page for /usr/bin/test might be
deceptive if its operations are not identical with those of your
shell.
Yet another problem is with schemes like /etc/alternatives that map a
common utility name to a specific release. Different distributions
handle alternatives differently; I don't have a suse system, so you'd
need to look at your own setup to see what alternatives can be set
there.
I guess this is my long-winded way of saying that I'm not sure I know
how I'd go about identifying "executables I should reasonably expect
to have a man page" on my systems.
--
Paul Heinlein
[email protected]
45°22'48" N, 122°35'36" W
