On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 09:00:41AM -0400, Robert Locke wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 11:02 +0000, Chris G wrote:
> <snip>
> > Adding the (rpm) entries means that the whatis database is no longer a
> > "set of database files containing short descriptions of system
> > commands" because the things it puts in there are *not* system
> > commands.
>
> Never has been. Only the things in "chapter 1" are really "system
> commands". The whatis database was initially a summary of the
> description lines of each of the man pages, but that has included
> commands, files, library functions, etc. Looking at the chapter told
> you what it was. But now there are things on the system that have no
> traditional man page, but might be what you are looking for. So some
> folks hacked in the (rpm) chapter so that we at least no about the
> existence of those facilities when we "search our system" even though
> they do not have a traditional man page....
>
> I think it's a neat idea....
>
OK, maybe, but it would be *much* more useful if one was pointed at
some information about the thing in question, e.g. 'man -k yelp' tells
me:-
yelp (rpm) - A system documentation reader from the Gnome project
but doesn't give me a clue as to how to find out anything else. The
whole point of 'man -k' or 'apropos' is surely to point at the place
where you can find out more about they keyword you have entered.
--
Chris Green
