https://invisible-island.net/man2html/
man2html [-aliases file] [-bare] [-belem name] [-botm lines]
[-cgiurl string] [-cgiurlexp expr] [-compress] [-externs file]
[-headmap mapfile] [-help] [-index] [-k] [-leftm chars]
[-leftside file] [-mixsecs] [-nodepage] [-noheads]
[-pgsize lines] [-seealso] [-solaris] [-sun] [-title string]
[-toc] [-topm lines] [-uelem name]
Typical Usage:
man2html [-options] < infile > outfile
man topic | man2html [-options] > outfile
The man2html filter reads formatted nroff text from standard 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:
o 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 disable this feature.
o Bold words designated by a "<char><bs><char>" sequences are wrapped
in <B> tags (or the element specified via the -belem option).
o Underlined words designated by a "_<bs><char>" sequences are
wrapped in <I> tags (or the element specified via the -uelem
option).
o Italicized and bold section heads designated by a
"_<bs><char><bs><char>" sequences are detected if the option
-mixsecs is given.
-aliases file
Gives man2html a list of manpage aliases, i.e., alternate names
for manual pages. The file contains one alias per line, followed
by the actual manual page name. Man2html will link the reference
for the alias to the actual manual page.
-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 overstriken
characters. The default is B.
-botm lines
The lines argument specifies the number of lines representing the
bottom margin of the formatted nroff input. The line count
includes any running footers. The default value is 7.
-cgiurl string
The string argument specifies a template URL for creating links to
other manpages. See the LINKING TO MANPAGES section below for
additional information.
-cgiurlexp expr
The expr argument specifies a Perl expression evaluting to a URL
for creating links to other manpages. See the LINKING TO MANPAGES
section below for additional information.
-compress
Compress consecutive blank lines into a single line.
-externs file
Tell man2html to not attempt to link to the manual pages listed in
the file.
-headmap mapfile
The mapfile argument is read to determine which HTML header tags
are to be used for various section heading 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 immediately.
-index
Write an un-numbered list of headers at the end of the output
HTML, which can be used as-is, or post-processed to make that list
an HTML "nav" area that can be manipulated with CSS.
-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 formatted nroff input. The
default value is 0.
-leftside file
Man2html detects references to other manual pages by manpage name
(a word, possibly with embedded "-") in bold font, followed by a
section number in parentheses. If the manpage name is split by
nroff's hyphenation, man2html can be confused, because it cannot
tell whether a "-" at the end of the line is part of a manpage
name, or just the hyphenation marker.
The -leftside option allows you to tell man2html about these
special cases, using a file containing the left-side of hyphenated
manpage names. If the option is not given, man2html uses a short
fallback: "apt", "cvs", "git", "sccs' and "sysv".
-mixsecs
enables checking for section heads which combine italics
(underline) and bold (overstrike).
-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 making 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 manual 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 manual page keyword search
format produced by the man(1) utility on systems running Solaris.
See the KEYWORD SEARCH section below for additional information.
-sun Do not require a section head to have bold overstriking in the
formatted nroff input. The option is called sun because it was on
a Sun workstation that section heads in manpages were found to not
be overstruck.
-title string
By default, man2html does not generate a HTML title (<TITLE>).
This option sets the title of the HTML output to the specified
string.
-toc Generate IDs compatible with HTML::Toc, which is used to produce a
separate table of contents file. The IDs embedded in HTML header-
tags, e.g., "<h3>" will have a "-toc" suffix.
-topm lines
The lines argument specifies number number of lines representing
the top margin of the formatted nroff 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 underscored
characters. The default is I.
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, having knowledge of perl allows you to be
more clever.
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 example: 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>.
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>',
);
As of this writing, this is the default map used by man2html:
%SectionHead = (
'\S.*OPTIONS.*' => '<H2>',
'AUTHORS?' => '<H2>',
'BUGS' => '<H2>',
'COMPATIBILITY' => '<H2>',
'DEPENDENCIES' => '<H2>',
'DESCRIPTION' => '<H2>',
'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 $HeadFallback variable to a different value if you
choose. This value is used as the header tag of a section head if no
matches are found in the %SectionHead map.
You may have noticed unusual characters in the default map file, such
as "\s" or "*". The man2html utility actual treats the
<section head text> as a perl regular expression. If you are
comfortable with perl regular expressions, then you have their full
power to use in your map file.
Caution: The man2html utility already anchors the regular expression to
the beginning of the line with left margin spacing specified by the
-leftm option. Therefore, do not use the "^" character to anchor your
regular expression to the beginning. However, you may end your
expression with a "$" 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 characters 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".
Caution: One should use single quotes instead of double quotes to
delimit <section head text>. This will preserve any "\" characters for
character escaping or when the "\" is used for special perl character
matching sequences (e.g., \s, \w, \S).
Comments can be inserted in the map file by using the '#' character.
Anything after, and including, the '#' character is ignored, up to the
end of line.
You might be thinking that the above is quite-a-bit-of-stuff just for
doing manpage section heads. However, you will be surprised how much
better the HTML output looks with header tags, even though, everything
else is in a <PRE> tag.
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 template 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 referenced.
$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., ${title}) so that man2html properly recognizes
the variable.
Note: If a CGI program calling man2html is actually a shell script or a
perl program, make sure to properly escape the '$' 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.
Different systems format manpages differently. Here is a list of
recommended command-line options for certain systems:
Convex: <defaults should be okay>
HP: -leftm 1 -topm 8
Sun: -sun (and -solaris when using -k)
Some line spacing is 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 should not be merged when man2html depaginates the text.
To avoid this problem, 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.
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.
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.
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=${title}
If the ls(1) manpage is referenced in the SEE ALSO section, the above
template will translate to the following URL:
/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=ls
The actual HTML markup will look like the following:
<A HREF="/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=ls">ls(1)</A>
The following template string is specified to retrieve pre-converted
manpages:
http://foo.org/man$section/$title.$section$subsection.html
If the mount(1M) manpage is referenced, the above template will
translate to the following URL:
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>
The option -cgiurlexp is a more general form of the -cgiurl option.
-cgiurlexp allows one to specify a general Perl expression. For
example:
$title=~/^db_/i?"$title.html":"/cgi-bin/man?$title+$section"
A -cgiurl string can be expressed as follows with -cgiurlexp:
return "string"
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:
o All manpage references are listed by section.
o 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.
o 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.
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 are different enough from other systems that a
special command-line option (-solaris) must be specified to handle its
output.
strcpy strcpy (9f) - copy a string from one location to another.
strcpy string (3c) - string operations
strncpy strcpy (9f) - copy a string from one location to another.
strncpy string (3c) - string operations
If keyword search results on your systems appear in the following
format:
<topic> <actual_manpage> (#) - Description
then you need to specify the -solaris option in addition to the -k
option.
Earl Hood
Thomas E. Dickey
Troff version of this document initially created for version 2.1.0 by
C. Jeffery Small (jeff@cjsa.com) by copying, reformatting, rearranging
and partially rewriting the contents of the ascii text file
doc/man2html.txt.
man(1), nroff(1), perl(1)
https://invisible-island.net/scripts/man2html.html
invisible-island.net 2024-01-05 MAN2HTML(1)