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Re: automake/335: Multi-language man pages


From: Eric Siegerman
Subject: Re: automake/335: Multi-language man pages
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 13:43:50 -0400
User-agent: Mutt/1.2.5i

On Mon, Sep 02, 2002 at 07:55:53PM +0200, Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:
> >>> "Josef" == Josef Spillner <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>  Josef> What is the right way to install man pages with
>  Josef> languages different from C (default)?
>  Josef> [...]
>  Josef> Back in December 2000, someone complained that foo.xx.1
>  Josef> was installed as xx/man1/foo.1 instead of
>  Josef> man1/foo.xx.1. So I guess extracting the language code
>  Josef> from the name (it could also be foo.1.xx) will be a
>  Josef> hairy task,
> 
> Is there a consensus about how to name these files?  
> The first message in PR/335 mentions `pt_BR-parted.8'.

If there isn't a convention, i.e. if this community gets to
invent one, *please* consider making it an extra subdirectory
level instead of a filename component, as in Josef's
"xx/man1/foo.1".  Put it that way, too, not "man1/xx/foo.1".

Advantages:
  - It capitalizes on the existing MANPATH mechanism.  People can
    put the appropriate directories in their MANPATH, e.g.:
        MANPATH=/usr/share/man/fr:/usr/share/man/en
    for someone bilingual in those languages, and they won't get
    all the other languages (or
        MANPATH=/usr/share/man/en:/usr/share/man/fr
    for someone who's basically anglophone but reads French a bit
    better than I do :-) and so might be able to dope out a
    French man page if necessary)

 - It makes the directory listings a lot easier to read; one
   doesn't have to filter out all of (what is to them) the noise

Disadvantage:
  - It breaks makewhatis

But using filename components -- "foo.xx.1" -- breaks the main
"man" functionality, or else requires users to type "man foo.fr"
or "man foo.en".  So neither way works without some retrofitting.

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        address@hidden
|  |  /
[...] despite reports to the contrary, it is the rare programmer who
permanently loses his sanity while coding ("permanently" being the
operative word).
        - Eric E. Allen




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