NAME

makeindex − index manpages allowing man very_long_name to work

SYNOPSIS

/usr/lib/makeindex file ... 

DESCRIPTION

makeindex builds a data base of man page file names and man page names.  The man command uses the data base to find the file name for a particular man page. 

For every file in the argument list, makeindex writes one or more lines on stdout containing the file name, and a list of manpage names.  Man page Index files are created by:

for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
    cd /usr/man/man$i
    /usr/lib/makeindex ∗ > ../cat$i/Index
done
 for i in 1 2 3
    cd /usr/man/bsd/man$i
    /usr/lib/makeindex ∗ > ../cat$i/Index
done

FILE FORMAT

To allow makeindex to locate the name, the source file format of a man-page MUST be consistent with the following description. 

The FIRST occurence of a line that begins with .SH must be the line that defines the NAME of a function, that is:

        .SH NAME

The lines that follow the name will all be scanned to locate possible entries for the index file.  The format of these lines can be any one of the following:

        function \- oneline description
        function1, function2, function3,
function4, function_N \- multiple line description
        string: strcat, strcmp, strncmp \- string functions

The next line that begins with the characters .SH stops the scanning for possible index entries, thus allowing multiple lines having the same format to create multiple entries. An index entry, listing the file name and the function name will be created for each of the names listed above.  If the manpage named ’samplepage’ contained exactly the entries shown in the example above, then an ’Index’ file would contain the following entries:

        samplepage:function
        samplepage:function1
        samplepage:function2
        samplepage:function3
        samplepage:function4
        samplepage:function_N
        samplepage:strcat
        samplepage:strcmp
        samplepage:string
        samplepage:strncmp

In other words, names may be either colon delimited or comma delimited in either a one line or multiple line description that contains a ’\-’ preceding the actual description of the functions.  The previous restriction that everything must be in a one line format has been removed.  This has been done since many X man page name descriptions are multiple line not single line.  Also, to accommodate the OSF motif style of man pages, if the first 3 characters in the NAME description is ’\fB’, and if a ’\-’ is not found in the lines between the lines that start with ".SH", then the next occurence of ’\’ is treated as a ’\-’.  This was done because the OSF motif man pages use ’\(em’ to print the ’-’ character. 
 

WHAT TO AVOID

The following layout will not function correctly:

    .SH NAME
    function1, function2, function3      \-
    description on this line.
    function4 \- another description.
    .SH SYNOPSIS

The makeindex program will assume that "description" is the name of a command, not the description part of the name.  If you wish to have multiple descriptions, the descriptions must be on the same line. 
 
 

WHAT IS PERMITTED

The following layout is permitted:

    .SH NAME
    generalname_if_any: func1, func2 \- description on this line
     generalname_if_any: func1, func2, func3, func4, func5
      \- description on this line
     generalname_if_any: func1, func2, func3, func4, func5,
func6, func7, \- description on this line
     generalname_if_any: func1, func2, func3, func4, func5,
func6, func7, func8, func9
\- description on this line
    .SH SYNOPSIS

In other words, the elements that cause an entry to be created for a line are the function names (comma or colon delimited), and the backslash-hyphen.  The data read up to the ’\-’ is assumed to be command names, and after the ’\-’ is assumed to be a description. 

SEE ALSO

catman(8), man(1)

September 02, 1992