NAME
man.conf - man command’s configuration file

DESCRIPTION
Man(1), apropos(1), and whatis(1) search for manual pages or their
database files as specified by the man.conf file. Manual pages are
expected to be preformatted (see nroff(1)).

The man.conf file contains two types of lines.

The first type of line is a "section" line, which contains a
section name followed by a directory path. Lines in this format
specify that manual pages for the section may be found in the
directory.

Directories named with a trailing slash character ("/") are
expected to contain subdirectories (see the keyword "_subdir"
below) instead of manual pages. These subdirectories are searched
instead of the directory.

All directories (either explicitly specified or named with a
trailing slash) may contain subdirectories. Man(1) automatically
searches any subdirectory with the same name as the current machine
type before the directory is searched. No specification of these
subdirectories is necessary in the man.conf file.

Section names are unrestricted except for the reserved words
specified below; in general, however, it is best to avoid anything
beginning with an underscore ("_") in order to avoid future
incompatibilities.

The section named "_default" is the list of directories to be
searched if no section is specified.

The second type of line is preceded with a "keyword". The
possible keywords and their meanings are as follows:

_subdir
The list (in search order) of subdirectories which will be
searched in any directory named with a trailing slash ("/")
character. This list is also used when a path is specified by
the MANPATH environment variable or the -M option.

_version
The version of the configuration file.

_whatdb
The full pathname (not just a directory path) for a database
to be used by the apropos(1) and whatis(1) commands.

Multiple specifications for all types of lines (except for
"_version") are cumulative and the entries are used in the order
listed in the file; multiple entries may be listed per line, as
well.

Empty lines or lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash
mark ("#") are ignored.

EXAMPLES
Given the following man.conf file:
_version MachTen.1
_subdir Man1 Man8 Man3
_default /usr/man/
sect3 /usr/man/Man3

The default mktemp(3) manual page should be stored in
"/usr/man/Man3/mktemp.3". Any MAC architecture specific version
of it should be stored in "Man3/MAC/mktemp.3".

The command "man mktemp" would search the subdirectories "Man1"
"Man8", and "Man3", in "/usr/man", in that order, for
"mktemp.3". If a subdirectory with the same name as the current
machine type existed in any of them, it would be searched as well.

The command "man sect3 mktemp" would only search
"/usr/man/Man3" and any possible per machine subdirectory.

FILES
/etc/man.conf standard manual directory search path

SEE ALSO
apropos(1), machine(1), man(1), whatis(1), whereis(1)