From perlman@wanginst.UUCP (Gary Perlman) Sun Jun  2 01:33:22 1985
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From: perlman@wanginst.UUCP (Gary Perlman)
Newsgroups: net.sources
Subject: pman - print parts of preformatted UNIX manual entries
Message-ID: <638@wanginst.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jun 85 06:33:22 GMT
Date-Received: 5 Jun 85 05:23:17 GMT
Distribution: net
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, MA 01879 USA
Lines: 1003

pman allows quick access to specific parts of entries,
rather than printing whole entries.  For example, "pman
who", prints the NAME and SYNOPSIS parts of what "man who"
prints.  Because the output is by section, and so is usually
short, a pipe to a pagination program, like more, is usually
unnecessary, making pman that much faster than man.  There
are options for compressing the output by simple
reformatting, so that for many programs, the basic
information is on one to three lines.  pman makes comparison
of program options a simple exercise. 

A simple system of equivalence classes:
	warnings   = WARNING* STATUS LIMITATION* DIAGNOSTIC*
	           + CAVEAT* BUG* NOTE* RESTRICTION*
	variables  = FILE* ENVRON* VARIABLE*
	details    = DESCRIPTION OPTION* NOTE* COMMENT* COMMAND*
	examples   = EXAMPLE* HINT*
	xrefs      = SEE_ALSO AUTHOR ALGORITHM* REFERENCE*
makes it easier to find sections of interest, despite
variation in section heading conventions.  For example, DEC
ULTRIX documentation avoids BUGS sections by calling them
RESTRICTIONS or LIMITATIONS.

pman is especially useful when conventional section headings
are used extensively.  One unconventional section I find
useful for getting abbreviated on-line help is an OPTIONS
section (accessed with the -o option) with just the command
line options.  I find this section fits nicely right after
the SYNOPSIS section.  Unfortunately, this section is seldom
used.  If you find pman useful, and would like to make it
more useful, you can put an OPTION section into existing
manuals entries. 

Please send comments and changes to me.

-- 
Gary Perlman  Wang Institute  Tyngsboro, MA 01879  (617) 649-9731
UUCP: decvax!wanginst!perlman             CSNET: perlman@wanginst

