Bug 70263

Summary:	man ignores /etc/man.config settings if MANPATH set
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	ronny.lampert
Component:	man	Assignee:	Eido Inoue <havill>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Ben Levenson <benl>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.3
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2003-01-08 20:15:22 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description ronny.lampert 2002-07-31 11:45:07 UTC

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Description of problem:
man ignores /etc/man.config settings if MANPATH set; it really should append
MANPATH-directories to the base-config (NOTE: In manpage to man this is
documented, that ONLY MANPATH is used!).

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
until recent RH 7.3 packaged

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.setenv MANPATH "/some/thing/weird" (export MANPATH=/some/thing/weird)
2.man ls
3.man -D ls
	

Actual Results:
eedrla@eedn760l: ~ [19]> setenv MANPATH /pkg/ars/man
eedrla@eedn760l: ~ [20]> man ls
No manual entry for ls
eedrla@eedn760l: ~ [21]> man -D ls
Reading config file /etc/man.config
found man directory /usr/share/man
found man directory /usr/X11R6/man
found man directory /usr/local/man
found man directory /usr/kerberos/man
found man directory /usr/lib/perl5/man
found man directory /usr/man
found manpath map /bin --> /usr/share/man
found manpath map /sbin --> /usr/share/man
found manpath map /usr/bin --> /usr/share/man
found manpath map /usr/sbin --> /usr/share/man
found manpath map /usr/local/bin --> /usr/local/man
found manpath map /usr/local/sbin --> /usr/local/man
found manpath map /usr/X11R6/bin --> /usr/X11R6/man
found manpath map /usr/bin/X11 --> /usr/X11R6/man
found manpath map /usr/bin/mh --> /usr/share/man
found manpath map /usr/kerberos/bin --> /usr/kerberos/man
found manpath map /usr/kerberos/sbin --> /usr/kerberos/man

using less as pager
adding /pkg/ars/man to manpath
No manual entry for ls

But it actually does NOT >add< the path, but uses it soleley.

Expected Results:
It should still search the in /etc/man.config set paths and find the page for ls.

Additional info:

This is very contra-productive in a mixed environment and is also not compliant
with the Unix paradigm: User Environment = basic sytem environment + custom settings

Comment 1 Eido Inoue 2003-01-08 20:15:22 UTC

normally environmental variables override preset defaults-- they do not append
to them. if you have a mixed system setup and are constantly having to add
things to the MANPATH it would be better to add to man.config than reset the env
vars.