Command to convert a manpage to a plain text file: $ groff -t -e -mandoc -Tascii manpage.1 | col -bx > manpage.txt which is explained in `Man-Page HOWTO', doesn't seem to work on Gentoo system, although it works correctly on (various versions of) SuSE system. I found that the Midnight Commander uses the following command to view a manpage: nroff -c -Tlatin1 -mandoc manpage.1 and $ nroff -c -Tlatin1 -mandoc manpage.1 | col -bx > manpage.txt seems to produce desired output correctly. Since `nroff' is based on `groff', there must be something wrong with argument passing mechanism of `groff' on Gentoo system. The current version of `groff' is groff-1.19.1-r2, but older versions have the same problem. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. root:groff# emerge info Portage 2.0.51.22-r2 (default-linux/amd64/2005.0, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r1, 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 x86_64 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 dev-lang/python: 2.3.5 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.5 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r10 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.18-r1 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env /usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/GENTOO http://mirror.gentoo.gr.jp http://gentoo.gg3.net/ http://mirror.averse.net/pub/gentoo/ http://gentoo.channelx.biz/ http://gentoo.arcticnetwork.ca/ http://cudlug.cudenver.edu/gentoo/ http://ftp.gentoo.or.kr/ ftp://gg3.net/pub/linux/gentoo/ http://gentoo.mirrors.easynews.com/linux/gentoo/" LINGUAS="en ja" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="amd64 X alsa avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr crypt cups curl eds encode esd fam foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imagemagick imlib ipv6 java jpeg kde libwww lzw lzw-tiff mad motif mp3 mpeg mysql ncurses nls ogg opengl pam pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline ruby sdl slang spell ssl tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype-fonts type1-fonts usb userlocales vorbis xine xml2 xmms xpm xv zlib linguas_en linguas_ja userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
What exactly you mean with "doesn't process manpages correctly"? The same thing as in Bug 102760?
I mean output is not plain text; a manpage is not convert to a plain text file. I am sorry, now I realize my subject line was not informative. No, not the same bug; #102760 is a bug of `col', and its effect is truncation only.
rather than blaming groff, maybe it's col's fault (Bug 102760)
No, definitely not. Output of $ groff -t -e -mandoc -Tascii wc.1 is like this: ^[[1mNAME^[[0m wc - print the number of newlines, words, and bytes in files ^[[1mSYNOPSIS^[[0m ^[[1mwc ^[[22m[^[[4mOPTION^[[24m]... [^[[4mFILE^[[24m]... And, output of $ nroff -c -mandoc -Tlatin1 wc.1 is like this: N^HNA^HAM^HME^HE wc - print the number of newlines, words, and bytes in files S^HSY^HYN^HNO^HOP^HPS^HSI^HIS^HS w^Hwc^Hc [_^HO_^HP_^HT_^HI_^HO_^HN]... [_^HF_^HI_^HL_^HE]... The latter can be filtered correctly by `col'.
the former outputs control codes which look fine if you give it to something which understands control codes like `less`
hey i'm french, i prefer to read the manual in my native your subject line is not unuseful. i saw this problem yesterday. the letter with some accents in the french man-pages are displayed like this e(C). i don't know how to fix this while i "can't" RTFM.
(In reply to comment #6) > hey i'm french, i prefer to read the manual in my native > your subject line is not unuseful. > i saw this problem yesterday. the letter with some accents in the french > man-pages are displayed like this e(C). > i don't know how to fix this while i "can't" RTFM. > The problem is not coming from groff. Scuse me for this msg
Hi all, it is a groff problem and the solution is to pass it the -c option. This can be set in /etc/man.conf. You may also compare man.conf on your suse and gentoo. (Do not mind the funny location of my man.conf, I am a alt-prefix user, but this is irrelevant.) 17:25 /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/etc [0]1 % diff -u man.conf{.orig,} --- man.conf.orig 2008-07-02 17:06:44 +0900 +++ man.conf 2008-07-02 17:25:37 +0900 @@ -93,8 +93,8 @@ # causes problems, add the -c option to TROFF, NROFF, JNROFF. # TROFF /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc -NROFF /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/nroff -mandoc -JNROFF /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/groff -Tnippon -mandocj +NROFF /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/nroff -mandoc -c +JNROFF /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/groff -Tnippon -mandocj -c EQN /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/geqn -Tps NEQN /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/geqn -Tlatin1 JNEQN /Users/laurin/Library/Gentoo/usr/bin/geqn -Tnippon
`man grotty` is the only man-page which for me shows colours (in the background and foreground example texts). People with garbled text seem to be able to get something useful when using man -P "less -R", while setting PAGER to "less -R" doesn't work.
you need to pass these additional args: -P -c -P -b -P -B these tell the postprocessor (grotty) to not use escape sequences. the escape sequences that show up in the output are part of ascii, so the -Tascii format doesn't tell groff to filter it out. the -mandoc says you want to do things like bold/color, so it includes the escape sequences. or i could be full of crap and you should check with upstream to verify: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/
