Description of problem: makewhatis doesnt pick up many manual entries because some entries use more than one dash in SH line, especially Perl entries generated by Pod::Man etc. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): man-1.6c-1.2 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Look at, for example, /usr/share/man/man3/PDL::Dumper.3pm.gz 2. 3. Actual results: Omitted from whatis database Expected results: Should be included Additional info: makewhatis should be changed so that 'match(x, / - /)' becomes 'match(x, / --* /)'. Also, many manual entries (well, only SDL manually entries) omit a space before the dash. Wouldn't it be better if makewhatis was a Perl script? Would be a lot more maintainable, and more accurate.
Fixed in man-1.6d-2.
Not fixed! I have checked with man-1.6d and the makewhatis is more-or-less unchanged from 1.6c. In fact it still has the "match(x, / - /) in it. So in what way has it become "fixed in 1.6d" when it doesn't in actual fact appear to have been fixed at all? Can I also suggest that when makewhatis is running, and it encounters a file for which no database entry can be determined, that it optionally lists the file on standard error. At the moment there is a "-v" option but all it does is lamely advise "about to enter ...". Otherwise long periods of time will elapse with database entries never being made and with no user or maintainer being aware of what is being missed. Surely that isn't something too difficult to arrange?
Please which version of man do you have (man-1.6d-1 is affected by this bug - it is fixed in man-1.6d-2)?
There is no man-1.6d-2 on local mirror, only 1.6d-1.1. So how can person who opened bug verify that bug is fixed if the modified source isn't available? Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until modified open source (GPL) software is make public before closing the bug? After all, there are people like myself who freely give of their time to discover bugs, and sometimes the fixes, and even to test again. When a bug gets closed we are supposed to be able to check, and/or install the fixed software, but we cannot do that if the fixed software isn't available. So what happens next? Wait a couple of weeks for the updated rpm before testing it? No, I'm not likely to do that. I will just keep using my own patch, then wait until next upgrade (could be a year away), and then get surprised that the bug still exists? Fix bug, release software, close bug report. And also just recently have been getting a lot of bug reports automatically (lazily) closed on account that they "might" be fixed (presumably accidentally) in FC5. So the onus is put back on bug reporter to retest, reopen bug, because nobody else can be bothered. As a result I treat bug closures as extremely suspicious because in practice they hardly ever seem to get fixed.
i386 version of man-1.6d-2 is in http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/fedora/linux/core/development/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/man-1.6d-2.i386.rpm if you need another version you can find it in http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/fedora/linux/core/development/ If this bug affects man-1.6d-2 (or higher version), please reopen this bug.