Re: makemandb vs. man.conf's _whatdb

[David Brownlee <abs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On 4 September 2012 17:23, Abhinav Upadhyay
<er.abhinav.upadhyay%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> Dave Huang <dave <at> azeotrope.org> writes:
> Hi,
>
> You can use the -o option of makemandb to optimize the database index,
> it will save several MBs of disk space. Also, in case of emergency or
> if you are not much fond of the full text search feature, you can use
> the -l option of makemandb as well (It won't store an index of the
> complete content of the man pages, just the NAME section).
>
> I will try to investigate what will be the best way to provide support
> for alternative database locations.

While it is a usage change maybe -o could be repurposed for output
file (similar to services_mkdb, to pick another /var/db generator) and
-O used for optimise?

I have an unusual use case where it would be nice to have a DESTDIR
like facility to specify the root of the tree for reading all source
files (and potentially writing the output) - effectively chroot but
without running the binary from the new tree.

(Its for building a live CD image of a base install where readonly
storage is cheap and RAM is not - I said it was an unusual use case :)