Re: adding a sysctl man section

On Thu, 11 Feb 2021 16:12:09 -0800
John-Mark Gurney <[email protected]> wrote:

> Lutz Donnerhacke wrote this message on Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 08:54 +0100:
> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 06:37:00PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote:  
> > > On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 5:15 PM John-Mark Gurney <[email protected]> wrote:  
> > > > Then, any page that describes a sysctl, would add an MLINK to it:
> > > > MLINK+= xhci.4 hw.usb.xhci.debug.s
> > > >
> > > > This section would be added to the default search, and then users
> > > > would simply be able to type: man <sysctl> and get directed to the
> > > > page that has information about it.
> > > >
> > > > Any objections?  
> > 
> > I'd oppose, it will clutter the filesystem for a "man -k" (or similar)
> > shortcut.  
> 
> Can you expand exactly how/why this would happen?  I assume you mean
> clutter the output from "man -k", but as "man -k" uses a db for it's
> data, it'd only slightly expand that db, but it wouldn't clutter the
> file system anymore, unless I'm missing something...
> 
> So, in one test case, this is what you'd see (or maybe section 9,
> which I'm find with):
> # man -k xhci
> xhci, hw.usb.xhci.ctlquirk, hw.usb.xhci.ctlstep, hw.usb.xhci.debug, hw.usb.xhci.dma32, hw.usb.xhci.streams, hw.usb.xhci.use_polling, hw.usb.xhci.xhci_port_route(4, s) - USB eXtensible Host Controller driver
> 
> yes, if you do a search for a generic term like debug, you'll end up
> a lot more extra output, BUT, "man -k debug" already outputs a wall
> of text that you're likely to need to filter anyways, so I don't see
> a major difference/problem here.
> 
> I will say I'm a bit surprised there isn't an option to apropos to allow
> only displaying the first matching man page to shorten the lines a bit,
> but we already have this problem for some man pages:
> # find . -type f -ls | awk '{ print $1 }' | sort | uniq -c | sort | tail -n 5
>   95 409059
>   98 405230
>  102 408573
>  116 397987
>  118 396855
> 
> 409059 is nv(9)
> 405230 is snmpmod(3)
> 408573 is bhnd(9)
> 397987 is libusb(3)
> 396855 is curs_sp_funcs(3X)
> 
> for example.
> # man -k libnv
> nvlist_create, nvlist_clone, nvlist_destroy, nvlist_dump, nvlist_empty, nvlist_error, nvlist_exists, nvlist_fdump, nvlist_flags, nvlist_free, nvlist_next, nvlist_pack, nvlist_recv, nvlist_send, nvlist_set_error, nvlist_size, nvlist_unpack, nvlist_xfer, nvlist_add_binary, nvlist_add_bool, nvlist_add_bool_array, nvlist_add_descriptor, nvlist_add_descriptor_array, nvlist_add_null, nvlist_add_number, nvlist_add_number_array, nvlist_add_nvlist, nvlist_add_nvlist_array, nvlist_add_string, nvlist_add_string_array, nvlist_add_stringf, nvlist_add_stringv, nvlist_append_bool_array, nvlist_append_descriptor_array, nvlist_append_number_array, nvlist_append_nvlist_array, nvlist_append_string_array, nvlist_exists_binary, nvlist_exists_bool, nvlist_exists_bool_array, nvlist_exists_descriptor, nvlist_ex
 ists_descriptor_array, nvlist_exists_null, nvlist_exists_number, nvlist_exists_number_array, nvlist_exists_nvlist, nvlist_exists_nvlist_array, nvlist_exists_string, nvlist_exists_type, nvlist_free_b
 in
>  ary, nvlist_free_bool, nvlist_free_bool_array, nvlist_free_descriptor, nvlist_free_descriptor_array, nvlist_free_null, nvlist_free_number, nvlist_free_number_array, nvlist_free_nvlist, nvlist_free_nvlist_array, nvlist_free_string, nvlist_free_string_array, nvlist_free_type, nvlist_get_binary, nvlist_get_bool, nvlist_get_bool_array, nvlist_get_descriptor, nvlist_get_descriptor_array, nvlist_get_number, nvlist_get_number_array, nvlist_get_nvlist, nvlist_get_nvlist_array, nvlist_get_parent, nvlist_get_string, nvlist_get_string_array, nvlist_move_binary, nvlist_move_descriptor, nvlist_move_descriptor_array, nvlist_move_nvlist, nvlist_move_nvlist_array, nvlist_move_string, nvlist_move_string_array, nvlist_take_binary, nvlist_take_bool, nvlist_take_bool_array, nvlist_take_descriptor, nvlist_t
 ake_descriptor_array, nvlist_take_number, nvlist_take_number_array, nvlist_take_nvlist, nvlist_take_nvlist_array, nvlist_take_string, nvlist_take_string_array, libnv, nv, nvlist, nvlist_in_array, nv
 li
>  st_add, nvlist_append, nvlist_get, nvlist_move, nvlis
> t_take(9) - library for name/value pairs
> 

I tend to agree with John-Mark here.  In my experience with man -k
most of the clutter comes from man pages installed by ports.

-- 
Gary Jennejohn
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