<html><head><meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark"></head><body><pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">Article 1166 of comp.unix.user-friendly:
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From: Tom Christiansen &lt;tchrist@cs.colorado.edu&gt;
Subject: Re: MANPATH
Message-ID: &lt;1993Nov18.140955.8314@convex.com&gt;
Originator: tchrist@convex.convex.com
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Nntp-Posting-Host: convex.convex.com
Reply-To: tchrist@cs.Colorado.EDU (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
References: &lt;1993Nov17.151102.23635@convex.com&gt; &lt;931118.041726-0400@mrexx-0.21&gt;
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 14:09:55 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.
Lines: 114

:-&gt; In comp.unix.user-friendly, Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) writes:
:&gt;Use this.
:..[Arcane program deleted]..
:
:Tom, you are joking, right?  :-)
:I sincerely hope (and mean it in a POSITIVE sense!) that this isn't
:the type of reply you'd send someone explicitely stating to be a
:casual/novice Unix user.  That program contains 9 words which look
:like they could be English, but the rest is "gibberish".

Are you really that blind?  It was called "manpath".  It said so in the
examples.  It said so in the program source.  Where else do you expect me
to say it?  

I expected you to install it so that the next time a user asks this, they
can type "manpath" and get what they want to know.  If that's just too
hard, then they don't care about a manpath anyway.

If you say "How do I do this?" and you are given a command to do it and
still complain, I really don't know how to help you.

:As novice/casual user I'd be off my rocker to run it; heck, it might
:delete all my files!  

You either trust that I have given you something reasonable, which I've
found that most people do, or have your system manager deal with it, which
is really what I was expecting to happen.

:Also, since you didn't specify a name for the
:program, a casual/novice user would probably file it as "test"...

Again, you just missed it.  Go read again.  I begin to believe that you
feign more ignorance than is the case.  

:I know you mean well and without doubt the program will do something
:beneficial (whatever it does), but it isn't English.  Sorry.

Big deal --  programs aren't supposed to be English.

:&gt;Nope.  Anyone on UNIX should spend a little time understanding
:&gt;pipes and grep.  It's well worth their while.
:
:If they have the requisite mindset, and can learn to understand
:those man pages...

If you want to do more than simply login and type the command to run one
application, then you can learn this stuff.  You can't expect people NOT
to have to learn ANYTHING.  It doesn't require a requisite mindset.  It
requires a mere modicum of intelligence, one found not just in CS grad
students, but in most bright kids and nearly any adult.  Some require more
training instead of being self-driven, that's all.

--tom

Why I do this, I don't know, but if you want something to be more
understood by someone who doesn't know the language (which was *NOT* a
design goal, mind you -- you odn't expect someone who doesn't know Greek
to be able to read Greek!!!), then you could use this.  It's the same
program.


#!/usr/bin/perl
#########################################################
# manpath -- intuit manpath based on path envariable	#
# by tchrist@cs.colorado.edu				#
# NB: verbose ugly version.  use the other one instead.	#
#########################################################

### put colon-separated $PATH into a list
@bin_path = split ( /:/, $ENV{"PATH"} );

### start empty...
@manpath = ();

### traverse list this one at a time
foreach $path_component ( @bin_path ) {

    ### make sure the first char isn't a dot
    if ( substr( $path_component, 0, 1) ne ".") {

        ### make a copy
        $man_component = $path_component;

        ### change the last part after the slash to "man"
        $man_component =~ s/[^\/+]*$/man/;

        ### does such a directory exist?
        if ( -d $man_component ) {

            ### but have we already dealt with it?
            if ( $already_seen{ $man_component } == 0 ) {

                ### append it to the list
                @manpath = ( @manpath, $man_component );

                ### remember we have seen it already
                $already_seen{ $man_component } = 1;
            }
        }
    }
}

### put a colon between each element
$colon_separated_version = join( ":", @manpath);

### now output what he needs to set his envariable to
print STDOUT $colon_separated_version;

### don't forget the newline at the end
print STDOUT "\n";
-- 
    Tom Christiansen      tchrist@cs.colorado.edu       
      "Will Hack Perl for Fine Food and Fun"
        Boulder Colorado  303-444-3212


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