SYNOPSIS
man2html [-bare] [-belem name] [-botm lines]
[-cgiurl string] [-cgiurlexp expr] [-compress]
[-headmap mapfile] [-help] [-k] [-leftm chars]
[-nodepage] [-noheads] [-pgsize lines] [-seealso]
[-solaris] [-sun] [-title string] [-topm lines]
[-uelem name]
Typical Usage:
man2html [-options] < infile > outfile
man topic | man2html [-options] > outfile
DESCRIPTION
The man2html filter reads formatted nroff text from stan
dard input (stdin) and writes a HTML document to standard
output (stdout).
The formatted nroff output is surrounded with <PRE> tags
with the following exceptions/additions:
· Section heads are wrapped in HTML header tags. See
the SECTION HEAD MAP FILE section below for additional
information. The -noheads option can be used to dis
able this feature.
· Bold words designated by a "<char><bs><char>"
sequences are wrapped in <B> tags (or the element
specified via the -belem option).
· Underlined words designated by a "_<bs><char>"
sequences are wrapped in <I> tags (or the element
specified via the -uelem option).
OPTIONS
-bare
This option will eliminate HTML <HEAD> and <BODY>
tags from the output. This is useful when you wish
to incorporate the output into another HTML document.
-belem name
Use name as the name of the element to wrap over
striken characters. The default is B.
-botm lines
The lines argument specifies the number of lines rep
resenting the bottom margin of the formatted nroff
input. The line count includes any running footers.
The default value is 7.
Compress consecutive blank lines into a single line.
-headmap mapfile
The mapfile argument is read to determine which HTML
header tags are to be used for various section head
ing in the manpage. See the SECTION HEAD MAP FILE
section below for information on the format of the
map file.
-help
Print out a short usage message and then exit immedi
ately.
-k Process input resulting from a manpage keyword search
(man -k). See the KEYWORD SEARCH section below for
additional information.
-leftm chars
The chars argument specifies the width of the number
of characters making up the left margin of the for
matted nroff input. The default value is 0.
-nodepage
By default, man2html merges multi-page formatted
nroff into a single page. This option may be used to
disable depagination, causing running headers and
footers in the formatted nroff input to be carried
over into the HTML output.
-noheads
By default, man2html wraps section heads in HTML
header tags. See the SECTION HEAD MAP FILE section
below for additional information. This option may be
specified to disabled this feature.
-pgsize lines
The lines argument specifies the number of lines mak
ing up the page size (length) of the formatted nroff
input. The default value is 66.
-seealso
If the -cgiurl option has been specified, then this
option restricts the creation of links to other man
ual pages to the SEE ALSO section only.
-solaris
If the -k option has been specified, then this option
modifies its operation to process the alternate man
ual page keyword search format produced by the man(1)
utility on systems running Solaris. See the KEY
WORD SEARCH section below for additional information.
input. The line count includes any running headers.
The default value is 7.
-uelem name
Use name as the name of the element to wrap under
scored characters. The default is I.
SECTION HEAD MAP FILE
The -headmap option may be used to customize which HTML
header tags, <H1> ... <H6>, are used in manpage section
headings. Normally, man2html treats lines that are flush
to the left margin (-leftm), and contain overstriking
(overstrike check is canceled with the -sun option), as
section heads. However, you can augment/override what
HTML header tags are used for any given section head.
In order to write a section head map file, you will need
to know about perl(1) associative arrays. You do not need
to be an expert in perl to write a map file, however, hav
ing knowledge of perl allows you to be more clever.
Augmenting the Default Map
To add to the default mapping defined by man2html, your
map file will contain lines with the following syntax:
$SectionHead{'<section head text>'} = '<html header tag>';
where
<section head text>
is the text of the manpage section head. For exam
ple: SYNOPSIS or DESCRIPTION.
<html header tag>
is the HTML header tag to wrap the section head in.
Legal values are: <H1>, <H2>, <H3>, <H4>, <H5>,
<H6>.
Overriding the Default Map
To override the default mapping with your own, then your
map file will have the following syntax:
%SectionHead = (
'<section head text>', '<html header tag>',
'<section head text>', '<html header tag>',
# ... More section head/tag pairs
'<section head text>', '<html header tag>',
);
The Default Map
As of this writing, this is the default map used by
man2html:
'DIAGNOSTICS' => '<H2>',
'ENVIRONMENT' => '<H2>',
'ERRORS' => '<H2>',
'EXAMPLES' => '<H2>',
'EXTERNAL INFLUENCES' => '<H2>',
'FILES' => '<H2>',
'LIMITATIONS' => '<H2>',
'NAME' => '<H2>',
'NOTES?' => '<H2>',
'OPTIONS' => '<H2>',
'REFERENCES' => '<H2>',
'RETURN VALUE' => '<H2>',
'SECTION.*:' => '<H2>',
'SEE ALSO' => '<H2>',
'STANDARDS CONFORMANCE' => '<H2>',
'STYLE CONVENTION' => '<H2>',
'SYNOPSIS' => '<H2>',
'SYNTAX' => '<H2>',
'WARNINGS' => '<H2>',
'\s+Section.*:' => '<H3>',
);
$HeadFallback = '<H2>'; # Fallback tag if above is not found.
Check the perl source code of man2html for the latest
default mapping.
You can reassign the $HeadFallback variable to a different
value if you choose. This value is used as the header tag
of a section head if no matches are found in the
%SectionHead map.
Using Regular Expressions in the Map File
You may have noticed unusual characters in the default map
file, like "\s" or "*". The man2html utility actual
treats the <section head text> as a perl regular expres
sion. If you are comfortable with perl regular expres
sions, then you have their full power to use in your map
file.
Caution: The man2html utility already anchors the regular
expression to the beginning of the line with left margin
spacing specified by the -leftm option. Therefore, do not
use the `^' character to anchor your regular expression to
the beginning. However, you may end your expression with
a `$' to anchor it to the end of the line.
Since the <section head text> is actually a regular
expression, you will have to be careful of special charac
ters if you want them to be treated literally. Any of the
characters `[ ] ( ) . ^ { } $ * ? + |' should be escaped
by prefixing them by the `\' character if you want perl to
treat them "as is".
will be surprised how much better the HTML output looks
with header tags, even though, everything else is in a
<PRE> tag.
LINKING TO OTHER MANPAGES
The man2html utility allows the ability to link to other
manpage references. If the -cgiurl option is specified,
man2html will create anchors that link to other manpages.
The URL entered with the -cgiurl option is actually a tem
plate that determines the actual URL used to link to other
manpages. The following variables are defined during run
time that may be used in the template string:
$title The title of the manual page referenced.
$section
The section number of the manual page refer
enced.
$subsection
The subsection of the manual page referenced.
Any other text in the template is preserved "as is".
Caution: The man2html utility evaluates the template
string as a perl string expression. Therefore, one might
need to surround the variable names with '{}' (e.g.,
${title}) so that man2html properly recognizes the vari
able.
Note: If a CGI program calling man2html is actually a
shell script or a perl program, make sure to properly
escape the '$' character in the URL template to avoid
variable interpolation by the CGI program.
Normally, the URL calls a CGI program (hence the option
name), but the URL can easily link to statically converted
documents.
Example1:
The following template string is specified to call a CGI
program to retrieve the appropriate manpage linked to:
/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=${section}${subsection}&topic=${title}
If the ls(1) manpage is referenced in the SEE ALSO sec
tion, the above template will translate to the following
URL:
/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=ls
http://foo.org/man1/mount.1M.html
The actual HTML markup will look like the following:
<A HREF="http://foo.org/man1/mount.1M.html">mount(1M)</A>
-cgiurlexp
The option -cgiurlexp is a more general form of the
-cgiurl option. -cgiurlexp allows one to specify a gen
eral Perl expression. For example:
$title=~/^db_/i?"$title.html":"/cgi-bin/man?$title+$sec
tion"
A -cgiurl string can be expressed as follows with -cgiurl
exp:
return "string"
KEYWORD SEARCH
The man2html utility has the ability to process keyword
search output generated by the man -k or apropos commands,
through the use of the -k option. The man2html utility
will generate an HTML document of the keyword search input
having the following format:
· All manpage references are listed by section.
· Within each section listing, the manpage references
are sorted alphabetically (case-sensitive) in a <DL>
tag. The manpage references are listed in the <DT>
section, and the summary text is listed in the <DD>
section.
· Each manpage reference listed is a hyperlink to the
actual manpage as specified by the -cgiurl option.
This ability to process keyword searches gives nice added
functionality to a WWW forms interface to man(1). Even if
you have statically converted manpages to HTML via another
man->HTML program, you can use man2html and "man -k" to
provide keyword search capabilities easily for your HTML
manpages.
Processing Keyword Search Results
Unfortunately, there is no standard controlling the format
of keyword search results. The man2html utility tries it
best to handle all the variations. However, the keyword
search results generated by the Solaris operating system
is different enough from other systems that a special com
mand-line option (-solaris) must be specified to handle
its output.
<topic> <actual_manpage> (#) - Description
then you need to specify the -solaris option in addition
to the -k option.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Different systems format manpages differently. Here is a
list of recommended command-line options for certain sys
tems:
Convex: <defaults should be okay>
HP: -leftm 1 -topm 8
Sun: -sun (and -solaris when using -k)
Some line spacing gets lost in the formatted nroff since
the spacing would occur in the middle of a page break.
This can cause text to be merged that shouldn't be merged
when man2html depaginates the text. To avoid this prob
lem, man2html keeps track of the margin indent right
before and after a page break. If the margin width of the
line after the page break is less than the line before the
page break, then man2html inserts a blank line in the HTML
output.
A manpage cross-reference is detected by the following
pseudo expression: [A-z.-+_]+([0-9][A-z]?)
The man2html utility only recognizes lines with " - " (the
normal separator between manpage references and summary
text) while in keyword search mode.
The man2html utility can be hooked in a CGI script/program
to convert manpages on the fly. This is the reason for
the -cgiurl option.
LIMITATIONS
The order that section head mapping is searched is not
defined. Therefore, if two or more <section head text>
can match a give manpage section, there is no way to
determine which map tag is chosen.
If -seealso is specified, all xrefs are detected after the
SEE ALSO heading. In other words, sections after SEE ALSO
may contain hyperlinked xrefs.
BUGS
Text that is flush to the left margin, but is not actually
a section head, can be mistaken for a section head. This
mistake is more likely when the -sun option is in affect.
VERSION
reformatting, rearranging and partially rewriting the con
tents of the ascii text file doc/man2html.txt.
97/08/12 MAN2HTML(1)
Man(1) output converted with
man2html