[Fedora-packaging] Re: PLEASE HELP - We need a policy for preventing man page name conflicts

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 06:39 -0600, Rex Dieter wrote:
> Orion Poplawski wrote:
> > Many packages provide man3 (and other) man pages with generic names. The 
> > case in question in ncarg-devel and allegro-devel which both provide 
> > man3/line.3.gz.  So, what do we do?

> > - rename to something like <package>_<manpage>?  
> 
> +1
Works for section 3 but not for section 1 (application man packages).
There, each man page should match the name of the tool it is trying to
describe.

But, if section 1 man pages clash, the apps probably also do.

> >Is there an easy way to find conflicts before 
> > packaging?
> 
> Not that I'm aware. 
It's close to impossible, because man page conflicts normally occur at
installation time, due to parallel installations of alternative
implementations (or badly designed packages).

> > - suffixes <manpage>.3<suffix> ?  Can man handle this?
> 
> Another possibility, but I'm unfamiliar with that convention.
It's the traditional standard on many non-Linux *nixes.

Unfortunately Linux' "man" doesn't handle these sufficiently well.
[Install Inventor-devel and Coin2-devel from FE, if you'd like to
experiment with this convention. .3iv vs. .3]

Ralf