>Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 11:02:00 +0200 (EET)
>From: era@iki.fi

>	1. I could find nothing for updating the whatis.db database,
>	save for an obscure sed script in /usr/share/man. Is that it?
>	How about a wrapper a la catman(1) and documentation?

Try /usr/libexec/makewhatis.

There is a version of catman in the tree, but it's not built by
default because it doesn't grok /etc/man.conf.

>	3. The whatis.db database as shipped contains lots of
>	references to pages which are not actually included in the
>	distribution. Good example: almost all the output from 
>		fgrep 'device' /usr/share/man/whatis.db

whatis.db includes all machine-dependent manpages, not just those
that apply to your particular machine.  This is correct because
whatis.db lives in /usr/share.

>	4. In search of a clue, I stumbled over a few undocumented
>	switches in man(1):

>	Ergo: Missing are -f, -k, and -P

Those options exist for backwards compatability only, so they are not
advertised.

>	5. At one point after I had made my own whatis.db (but before
>	adding _whatis /usr/local/man/whatis.db to man.conf) I noticed
>	that man(1) would find my man pages in /usr/local whereas
>	whatis(1) would not look for whatis.db in the same directory
>	even if I didn't set up a $MANPATH. They both read man.conf,
>	couldn't they grok it the same way too?

See PR 1904 for some code that does this.  Someday we'll get around to
fixing it.
-- 
Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>     <URL:http://www.shore.net/~mikel>
VLSI Design Engineer         finger mikel@shore.net for PGP public key
Analog Devices, CPD Division          CCBF225E7D3F7ECB2C8F7ABB15D9BE7B
Norwood, MA 02062 USA       (eq (opinion 'ADI) (opinion 'mike)) -> nil