Manual page width is fixed and I'd like it not to be

[Raye Raskin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Igor Pechtchanski" <pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu>
To: "Raye Raskin" <rayer@pobox.com>
Cc: <cygwin@cygwin.com>
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: Manual page width is fixed and I'd like it not to be


> On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Raye Raskin wrote:
> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Christopher Faylor" <cgf-no-personal-reply-please@XXXXXX.XXX>
>> To: <cygwin@XXXXXX.XXX>
> 
> <http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PCYMTNQREAIYR>.  Thanks.
> 
>> Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 5:35 PM
>> Subject: Re: Manual page width is fixed and I'd like it not to be
>>
>> > On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 06:50:57PM -0500, Aaron Miller wrote:
>> > > Thanks for the pointer, and I'll ask on the cygwin-xfree list as well.
>> > > It's not really a query about xterm, though: using a shortcut that
>> > > starts bash in a standard Windows command-shell which is 100 columns
>> > > wide, if I ask for a manual page, I still get it formatted to eighty
>> > > columns.  I mentioned xterms since that's what I prefer to use, but
>> > > it's not by any means a problem exclusive to those.
>> >
>> > Ok, you and three or four other people made this point after I blocked
>> > the subject here because I thought it was xterm specific.
>> >
>> > Instead, it isn't even cygwin-specific.  All of my man pages are
>> > formatted to 80 columns on linux, too.  If you think about how man
>> > works, where it caches the formatted output in a separate directory
>> > it is easy to see why that is the case.
>>
>> Dear Christopher,
>>
>> There has to be a better way than refusing emails just because
>> the word xterm is in the body of the message.
>>
>> I really don't like doing (granted, just a little) research and
>> replying to a problem in a effort to help out just to get it
>> moderated into the bit bucket because someone in power thinks
>> the subject taints the purity of the cygwin mailing list.
>>
>> Assuming this message isn't blocked as well, here is my reply
>> that was bounced earlier:
>>
>>  According to the man man page, $MANWIDTH should address your
>>  precise issue, but on my system setting $MANWIDTH has no effect.
>>  I guess this makes it a bug.  Either in the doc or the bin!
> 
> Well, that's not a full bug report, since man uses a cached cat page if
> it's present.  So, unless your system doesn't have the cat directories,
> you need to run "man -c" to force regeneration of cat pages.  That said, I
> confirm that "MANWIDTH=20 man -c man" still produces an 80-column manpage.
> But then, hey, it doesn't work on Linux (RedHat 9) either.  We must be
> misreading the man manpage. :-)
> Igor

I tried man on my SuSE 9.1 Linux and it (1) follows the size of the
xterm automatically and (2) follows the $MANWIDTH directive as well.

R


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