'\" t
.\" Man page for mandb
.\"
.\" Copyright (C), 1994, 1995, Graeme W. Wilford. (Wilf.)
.\"
.\" You may distribute under the terms of the GNU General Public
.\" License as specified in the file COPYING that comes with the
.\" man_db distribution.
.\" 
.\" Tue Apr 26 12:56:44 BST 1994  Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk) 
.\"
.TH mandb 8 "July 12th, 1995" "2.3.10" "Manual pager utils"
.SH NAME
mandb \- create or update the manual page index caches
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B mandb  
.RB [\| \-dqsuc \||\| \-h \||\| \-V\c
.RI "\|] [\|" manpath \|] 
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B mandb
is used to initialise or manually update
.B index 
database caches that are usually maintained by 
.BR man .
The caches contain information relevant to the current state of the manual
page system and the information stored within them is used by the man_db 
utilities to enhance their speed and functionality.

When creating or updating an
.BR index ,
.B mandb
will warn of bad ROFF .so requests, bogus manual page filenames and 
manual pages from which the 
.B whatis 
cannot be parsed.

Supplying 
.B mandb 
with an optional colon delimited path will override the internal `global'
manual page hierarchy search path, determined from information found within 
the man_db configuration file.
.SH "DATABASE CACHES"
.B mandb
can be compiled with support for any one of the following database types.

.TS
tab (@);
l l l l.
Name@Type@Async@Filename
_
Berkeley db@Binary tree@Yes@\fIindex.bt\fR
GNU gdbm v >= 1.6@Hashed@Yes@\fIindex.db\fR
GNU gdbm v <  1.6@Hashed@No@\fIindex.db\fR
UNIX ndbm@Hashed@No@\fIindex.(dir|pag)\fR
.TE

Those database types that support asynchronous updates provide enhanced
speed at the cost of possible corruption in the event of unusual
termination.
In an unusual case where this has occured, it may be necessary to rerun 
.B mandb 
with the 
.B \-c
option to re-create the databases from scratch. 
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-d, \-\-debug
Produce debugging information.
.TP
.B \-q, \-\-quiet
Produce no warnings.
.TP
.B \-s, \-\-no-straycats
Do not spend time looking for or adding information to the databases
regarding stray cats.
.TP
.B \-c, \-\-create
By default, 
.B mandb
will try to update any previously created databases. If a database
does not exist, it will create it. This option forces 
.B mandb
to delete previous databases and re-create them from scratch. This may be
necessary if a database becomes corrupt or if a new database storage scheme
is introduced in the future.
.TP
.B \-u, \-\-user-db
Create user databases only, even with write permissions necessary to create
`global' databases.
.TP
.B \-h, \-\-help
Show the usage message, then exit.
.TP
.B \-V, \-\-version
Show the version, then exit.
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
The following warning messages can be omitted during database building.
.TP 
.B <filename>: whatis parse for page(sec) failed
An attempt to extract whatis line(s) from the given
<filename> failed.  This is usually due to a poorly written manual
page, but if many such messages are emitted it is likely that the
system contains non-standard manual pages which are incompatible with
the man_db whatis parser.
.TP
.B <filename>: is a dangling symlink
<filename> does not exist but is referenced by a symbolic link. 
Further diagnostics are usually emitted to identify the <filename> of the
offending link. 
.TP
.B <filename>: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
<filename> is either a symbolic link to, or contains a ROFF include
request to, a non existent file.
.TP
.B <filename>: ignoring bogus filename
The <filename> may or may not be a valid manual page but it's name is
invalid.  This is usually due to a manual page with sectional extension <x>
being put in manual page section <y>. 
.TP
.B <filename_mask>: competing extensions
The wildcard <filename_mask> is not unique.  This is usually caused by
the existance of both a compressed and uncompressed version of the same
manual page.  All but the most recent are ignored.
.SH FILES
.TP
.I /usr/local/etc/man_db.config
man_db configuration file.
.TP
.I /usr/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
A traditional global
.I index
database cache.
.TP
.I /var/catman/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
An alternate or FSSTND
compliant global
.I index
database cache.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR man (1), 
.BR manpath (5),
.BR catman (8).
.SH AUTHOR
Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk)