Mailing List Archive

On Wed, 23 Aug 1995, Jared Rhine wrote:

> I've just installed Perl 5.001m on a slew of platforms, and in each case,
> Configure defaulted to installing the libary man pages in
> /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.

Yes. That was deliberate. There should be a *lot* of perl module pages,
and I received several complaints/suggestions about cluttering up the
man3 directory. There are also real possibilities for conflict since
other packages (such as tcl) put man pages in /usr/local/man/man3.

This is documented in README and in perl.pod (which you should be able to
view via man perl).

This is also one of the many reasons why Configure is by default interactive.
However, you can always override the defaults by
Configure -Dman3dir=/where/you/want/man3
You can also do this during the install phase
make install.perl
./perl installman --man3dir=/where/you/want
though I don't recommend that, since Config{'man3dir'} will still point
to the /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3 directory.

Hope this helps,

Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu
Dept. of Physics
Lafayette College, Easton PA 18042

> I've just installed Perl 5.001m on a slew of platforms, and in each case,
> Configure defaulted to installing the libary man pages in
> /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.

Yeah, I always change it back to be a part of the same directory
structure as the other man pages. I didn't realize that it might be a
bug.

-Danny

[Citation date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 11:41:22 -0400 (EDT)]
AD == Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>

JR> I've just installed Perl 5.001m on a slew of platforms, and in each
JR> case, Configure defaulted to installing the libary man pages in
JR> /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.

AD> This is documented in README and in perl.pod (which you should be able
AD> to view via man perl).

Ok, I can understand the rational for the choice (although I would prefer a
default of /usr/local/man/man3pm), but if one changes the default through
Configure, perl.pod points to the wrong page. If you're going to hard code
paths into the documentation, it would be best to post-process the
documentation to update paths to their actual, configure-time values.

--
Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu / Organic Online / <URL:http://www.hmc.edu/~jared/home>

"Pioneers get shot full of arrows." - Rob McCool in "Using PGP/PEM encryption"

On Wed, 23 Aug 1995, Jared Rhine wrote:

> [Citation date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 11:41:22 -0400 (EDT)]
> AD == Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>
>
> JR> I've just installed Perl 5.001m on a slew of platforms, and in each
> JR> case, Configure defaulted to installing the libary man pages in
> JR> /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
>
> AD> This is documented in README and in perl.pod (which you should be able
> AD> to view via man perl).
>
> Ok, I can understand the rational for the choice (although I would prefer a
> default of /usr/local/man/man3pm), but if one changes the default through
> Configure, perl.pod points to the wrong page. If you're going to hard code
> paths into the documentation, it would be best to post-process the
> documentation to update paths to their actual, configure-time values.

Yes, this too is documented in perl.pod. If anyone wants to update
the build/install process to post-process the documentation to update paths,
feel free to do so. (I guess you'd build perl_pod.PL).

The default is not /usr/local/man/man3pm because that isn't portable.
The '3pm' is the problem. Not all systems will support it. If someone
wants to conjure up a Configure test to check whether .3pm is suitable,
that's ok by me.


Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu
Dept. of Physics
Lafayette College, Easton PA 18042