Using man-page under Mac OS X

[Eckeneckepenn]

Hello,

I tried to install the shell integration after downloading DiffMerge. My problem: I installed the man-page as well as described but when typing "man diffmerge" it still sais "no manual entry". I even tried to do everything as root (not only admin but root).
It is in /usr/share/man/man1 and the ls -al shows
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 2840 12 Aug 17:55 diffmerge.1

I really hope that anyone can help me!

[jeffhostetler]

I'm not sure what the problem is. But to double check I just
re-installed it on my system. As root, I copied diffmerge.man1
to /usr/share/man/man1/diffmerge.1 and then tried a "man diffmerge"
and it worked without any problems.

If you run "/usr/bin/manpath" is "/usr/share/man" listed ?

$ manpath
/opt/local/share/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/X11/man
$ which manpath
/usr/bin/manpath
$

You might try using the "-d" option in man which turns on some
debug output.

Let me know if you figure it out.
jeff

[Eckeneckepenn]

Hello Jeff,

I figured out that "man" does not work at all at my installation. Consequently, when typing "/usr/bin/manpath" I get nothing at all. Is this just my machine or a Mac thing?

When typing "diffmerge -help" everything works fine. I just did not try that before...

I work under Mac OS X 10.6.4

Hanno

[jeffhostetler]

This sounds like something messed up on your machine or
maybe just your user account.
On my machine /usr/bin/manpath is a symlink to /usr/bin/man
and both were installed by the OS. "manpath" should report
3 or 4 system directories. And "man" should be able to show
pages for the OS commands. That is, you should be able to
do a "man man" and get full info on the "man" command.

I'm not sure what could be causing this problem. But you might
try "man -M /usr/share/man man" and see if you get something.

jeff

[Eckeneckepenn]

Hello Jeff!

Got that correctly. It shows the manpage of man. In the same way, I get the manual of diffmerge too. The link in the bin folder is there too:

Code: Select all

-r-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  110352 18 Mai  2009 man
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel       3 15 Sep  2009 manpath -> man

So, that does not seem to be the problem...

Do you have any other idea?

Hanno

[jeffhostetler]

Sounds like your shell environment is messed up somehow.
Can't say for sure. But see you're setting MANPATH in your
.profile or .bashrc and if so take it out and login again. You
might also look at some of the /private/etc/man* files mentioned
in the manpath man-page (and maybe the permissions on them).

jeff

[Eckeneckepenn]

Couls you please give me more details? I'm not used to it and I do not want to make anything worse...

[Eckeneckepenn]

Got it finally!

My $MANPATH variable was set. I found by chance even how it probably happened. I followed those instructions in order to install wine:
http://davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/
There, the Manpath is set and never reset. It seem that deleting that variable should be enough.

[jeffhostetler]

Thanks for the update. Glad you got everything working.
jeff