[csw-maintainers] [gfile 0004578]: man page not formatted correctly

[Dagobert Michelsen]

Hi Maciej,

Am 19.10.2010 um 10:35 schrieb Maciej (Matchek) Blizinski:
> Here's a bug that was recently filed against gfile:
>
> No dia 19 de Outubro de 2010 02:37, Mantis Bug Tracker
> <noreply at opencsw.org> escreveu:
>>
>> The following issue has been SUBMITTED.
>> =
>> =====================================================================
>> https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=4578
> (...)
>> =
>> =====================================================================
>> Project:                    gfile
> (...)
>> =
>> =====================================================================
>> Summary:                    man page not formatted correctly
>> Description:
>> man gfile
>> shows a scrambled man page
>> =
>> =====================================================================
>
> In this case, "scrambled" means lost formatting: the whole manpage is
> a monolithic, rectangular block of text.  Here's an example:
>
> http://paste.pocoo.org/show/277304/
>
> Is it a known problem with man pages?  Are there any solutions or  
> workarounds?

There are macros in there incompatible with the Solaris nroff
implementation. It happens from time to time:
   https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=1055
Try
   gnroff -man <manpage>
and shipping the page in catX/ for the easiest solution or read and
understand how nroff macros are programmed (recommended by James :-)
and fix the manpage (IIRC pretty hard...)
   http://oreilly.com/openbook/utp/

I vaguely remember we talked about the malformed manpage when I
built GNU file initially but hesitated to release it for this
reason and you did say that you resolved the issue, but I can't
find the discussion ATM... Maybe on IRC?


Best regards

   -- Dago