Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       man2html - format a manual page in html

SYNOPSIS

       man2html [options] [file]

DESCRIPTION

       man2html  converts a manual page as found in file (or stdin, in case no
       file argument, or the argument "-", is given) from man-style nroff into
       html,  and  prints  the result on stdout.  It does support tbl but does
       not know about eqn.  The exit status is 0. If something goes wrong,  an
       error page is printed on stdout.

       This can be used as a stand-alone utility, but is mainly intended as an
       auxiliary, to enable users to browse  their  man  pages  using  a  html
       browser like lynx(1), xmosaic(1) or netscape(1).

       The  main  part  of  man2html  is  the  troff-to-html engine written by
       Richard  Verhoeven  (rcb5@win.tue.nl).   It  adds  hyperlinks  for  the
       following constructs:

       foo(3x)           "http://localhost/cgi-bin/man/man2html?3x+foo"
       method://string   "method://string"
       www.host.name     "http://www.host.name"
       ftp.host.name     "ftp://ftp.host.name"
       name@host         "mailto:name@host"
       <string.h>        "file:/usr/include/string.h"

       (The first of these can be tuned by options - see below.)  No lookup is
       done - the links generated need not exist.  Also an index with internal
       hyperlinks  to  the various sections is generated, so that it is easier
       to find one’s way in large man pages like bash(1).

OPTIONS

       When reading from  stdin,  it  is  not  always  clear  how  to  do  .so
       expansion.  The  -D  option  allows  a  script  to  define  the working
       directory.

       -D pathname
              Strip the last two parts from the pathname, and do a  chdir(dir)
              before starting the conversion.

       The  -E  option allows the easy generation of error messages from a cgi
       script.

       -E string
              Output an error page containing the given error message.

       The general form of a hyperlink generated for a man page reference is

              <method:cgipath><man2htmlpath><separator><manpage>

       with a default as shown above. The parts  of  this  hyperlink  are  set
       using the various options.

       -h     Set method:cgipath to http://localhost.

       -H host[.domain][:port]
              Set method:cgipath to http://host.domain:port.

       -l     Set method:cgipath to lynxcgi:/usr/lib.

       -L dir Set method:cgipath to lynxcgi:dir.

       -M man2htmlpath
              Set   the   man2htmlpath   to   use.   The   default   is  /cgi-
              bin/man/man2html.

       -p     Set separator to ’/’.

       -q     Set separator to ’?’. This is the default.

       -r     Use relative html paths, instead of cgi-bin paths.

       On a machine without running httpd, one can use lynx to browse the  man
       pages,  using  the  lynxcgi  method.  When some http daemon is running,
       lynx, or any other browser, can be used to browse the man pages,  using
       the  http  method.   The  option  -l (for ‘lynxcgi’) selects the former
       behaviour.  With it, the default cgipath is /usr/lib.

       In general, a cgi script can be called by

              <path_to_script>/<more_path>?<query>

       and the environment variables PATH_INFO and QUERY_STRING will be set to
       <more_path>  and  <query>, respectively.  Since lynxcgi does not handle
       the PATH_INFO part, we generate hyperlinks with ‘?’ as a  separator  by
       default.   The option -p (for ‘path’) selects ’/’ as a separator, while
       the option -q (for ‘query’) selects ’?’ as a separator.

       The option -H host will specify the host to use (instead of localhost).
       A cgi script could use

              man2html -H $SERVER_NAME

       if  the  variable SERVER_NAME is set.  This would allow your machine to
       act as a server and export man pages.

BUGS

       There are many heuristics.  The output will not always be perfect.  The
       lynxcgi  method  will  not  work if lynx was compiled without selecting
       support for it.  There may be problems with security.

AUTHOR

       Richard  Verhoeven  was  the  original  author  of  man2html.   Michael
       Hamilton  and  Andries  Brouwer  subsequently improved on it.  Federico
       Lucifredi <flucifredi@acm.org> is the current maintainer.

SEE ALSO

       lynx(1), man(1), hman(1)

                                1 January 1998                     man2html(1)