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.Dd $Mdocdate: June 29 2025 $
.Dt CATMAN 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm catman
.Nd format all manual pages below a directory
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm catman
.Op Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
.Op Fl T Ar output
.Ar srcdir dstdir
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility assumes that all files below
.Ar srcdir
are manual pages in
.Xr mdoc 7
and
.Xr man 7
format and formats all of them, storing the formatted versions in
the same relative paths below
.Ar dstdir .
Subdirectories of
.Ar dstdir
are created as needed.
Existing files are not explicitly deleted, but possibly overwritten.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
Override the default operating system
.Ar name
for the
.Xr mdoc 7
.Ic \&Os
and for the
.Xr man 7
.Ic TH
macro.
.It Fl T Ar output
Output format.
The
.Ar output
argument can be
.Cm ascii ,
.Cm utf8 ,
or
.Cm html ;
see
.Xr mandoc 1 .
In
.Cm html
output mode, the
.Cm fragment
output option is implied.
Other output options are not supported.
.El
.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
Since this version avoids
.Xr fork 2
and
.Xr exec 3
overhead and uses the much faster
.Sy mandoc
parsers and formatters rather than
.Sy groff ,
it may be about one order of magnitude faster than other
.Nm
implementations.
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std
.Pp
Failures while trying to open individual manual pages for reading,
to save individual formatted files to the file system,
or even to read or create subdirectories do not cause
.Nm
to return an error exit status.
In such cases,
.Nm
simply continues with the next file or subdirectory.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
Some fatal errors cause
.Nm
to exit before the iteration over input files is even started:
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent
.It unknown option \-\- Ar option
An invalid option was passed on the command line.
.It Sy socketpair : Ar reason
The sockets needed for communication with
.Xr mandocd 8
could not be created, for example due to file descriptor or memory exhaustion.
.It Sy fork : Ar reason
The new process needed to run
.Xr mandocd 8
could not be created, for example due to process table exhaustion
or system resource limits.
.It Sy exec Ns Po Sy mandocd Pc : Ar reason
The
.Xr mandocd 8
child program could not be started, for example because it is not in the
.Ev PATH
or has no execute permission.
.It Sy open No destination Ar dstdir : reason
The
.Ar dstdir
could not be opened for reading, for example because it does not exist,
it is not a directory, or permission is denied.
.It Sy chdir No to source Ar srcdir : reason
The current working directory could not be changed to
.Ar srcdir ,
for example because it does not exist, it is not a directory,
or permission is denied.
.It Sy fts_open : Ar reason
Starting the iteration was attempted, but failed.
.El
.Pp
Some fatal errors cause the iteration over input files to be aborted
prematurely:
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent
.It FATAL: Sy fts_read : Ar reason
A call to
.Xr fts_read 3
returned
.Dv NULL ,
meaning that the iteration failed before being complete.
.It FATAL: Sy sendmsg : Ar reason
The file descriptors needed to process one of the manual pages
could not be sent to
.Xr mandocd 8 ,
for example because
.Xr mandocd 8
could not be started or died unexpectedly.
.El
.Pp
Some non-fatal errors cause a single subdirectory to be skipped.
The iteration is not aborted but continues with the next subdirectory,
and the exit status is unaffected:
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent
.It directory Ar subdirectory No unreadable : Ar reason
A directory below
.Ar srcdir
could not be read and is skipped.
.It directory Ar subdirectory No causes cycle
A directory below
.Ar srcdir
is skipped because it would cause cyclic processing.
.It Sy mkdirat Ar subdirectory : reason
A required directory below
.Ar dstdir
does not exist and could not be created.
The corresponding subdirectory below
.Ar srcdir
is skipped.
.El
.Pp
Some non-fatal errors cause a single source file to be skipped.
The iteration is not aborted but continues with the next file,
and the exit status is unaffected:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent
.It file Ar filename : reason
The function
.Xr fts_read 3
reported a non-fatal error with respect to
.Ar filename .
.It Ar filname : No not a regular file
For example, it might be a symbolic link or a device file.
.It Sy open Ar filename No for reading : Ar reason
A file below
.Ar srcdir
could not be read, for example due to permission problems.
.It Sy openat Ar filename No for writing : Ar reason
A file below
.Ar dstdir
could not be created or truncated, for example due to permission problems.
.El
.Pp
If errors occur, the applicable summary messages appear
after the end of the iteration:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
.It skipped Ar number No directories due to errors
.It skipped Ar number No files due to errors
.It processing aborted due to fatal error
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr mandoc 1 ,
.Xr mandocd 8
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
utility first appeared in
.Fx 1.0 .
Other, incompatible implementations appeared in
.Nx 1.0
and in
.Sy man-db No 2.2 .
.Pp
This version appeared in version 1.14.1 of the
.Sy mandoc
toolkit.
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
The first
.Nm
implementation was a short shell script by
.An Christoph Robitschko
in July 1993.
.Pp
The
.Nx
implementations were written by
.An J. T. Conklin Aq Mt jtc@netbsd.org
in 1993,
.An Christian E. Hopps Aq Mt chopps@netbsd.org
in 1994,
and
.An Dante Profeta Aq Mt dante@netbsd.org
in 1999; the
.Sy man-db
implementation by
.An Graeme W. Wilford
in 1994; and the
.Fx
implementations by
.An Wolfram Schneider Aq Mt wosch@freebsd.org
in 1995 and
.An John Rochester Aq Mt john@jrochester.org
in 2002.
.Pp
The concept of the present version was designed and implemented by
.An Michael Stapelberg Aq Mt stapelberg@debian.org
in 2017.
Option and argument handling and directory iteration was added by
.An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org .
.Sh CAVEATS
All versions of
.Nm
are incompatible with each other because each caters to the needs
of a specific operating system, for example regarding directory
structures and file naming conventions.
.Pp
This version is more flexible than the others in so far as it does
not assume any particular directory structure or naming convention.
That flexibility comes at the price of not being able to change the
names and relative paths of the source files when reusing them to
store the formatted files, of not supporting any configuration file
formats or environment variables, and of being unable to scan for
and remove junk files in
.Ar dstdir .
.Pp
Currently,
.Nm
always reformats each page, even if the formatted version is newer
than the source version.