NAME
man2html - convert UNIX nroff(1) manual pages to HTML format
SYNOPSIS
man2html [-bare] [-belem name] [-botm lines]
[-cgiurl string] [-cgiurlexp expr] [-compress]
[-headmap mapfile] [-help] [-k] [-leftm chars]
[-nodepage] [-noheads] [-pgsize lines] [-seealso]
[-solaris] [-sun] [-title string] [-topm lines]
[-uelem name]
Typical Usage:
man2html [-options] < infile > outfile
man topic | man2html [-options] > outfile
DESCRIPTION
The man2html filter reads formatted nroff text from standard
input (stdin) and writes a HTML document to standard output
(stdout).
The formatted nroff output is surrounded with <PRE> tags
with the following exceptions/additions:
o Section heads are wrapped in HTML header tags. See the
SECTION HEAD MAP FILE section below for additional
information. The -noheads option can be used to disable
this feature.
o Bold words designated by a "<char><bs><char>" sequences
are wrapped in <B> tags (or the element specified via
the -belem option).
o Underlined words designated by a "_<bs><char>" sequences
are wrapped in <I> tags (or the element specified via
the -uelem option).
OPTIONS
-bare
This option will eliminate HTML <HEAD> and <BODY> tags
from the output. This is useful when you wish to
incorporate the output into another HTML document.
-belem name
Use name as the name of the element to wrap overstriken
characters. The default is B.
-botm lines
The lines argument specifies the number of lines
representing the bottom margin of the formatted nroff
input. The line count includes any running footers.
The default value is 7.
-cgiurl string
The string argument specifies a template URL for creat-
ing links to other manpages. See the
LINKING TO OTHER MANPAGES section below for additional
information.
-cgiurlexp expr
The expr argument specifies a Perl expression evaluting
to a URL for creating links to other manpages. See the
LINKING TO OTHER MANPAGES section below for additional
information.
-compress
Compress consecutive blank lines into a single line.
-headmap mapfile
The mapfile argument is read to determine which HTML
header tags are to be used for various section heading
in the manpage. See the SECTION HEAD MAP FILE section
below for information on the format of the map file.
-help
Print out a short usage message and then exit immedi-
ately.
-k Process input resulting from a manpage keyword search
(man -k). See the KEYWORD SEARCH section below for
additional information.
-leftm chars
The chars argument specifies the width of the number of
characters making up the left margin of the formatted
nroff input. The default value is 0.
-nodepage
By default, man2html merges multi-page formatted nroff
into a single page. This option may be used to disable
depagination, causing running headers and footers in
the formatted nroff input to be carried over into the
HTML output.
-noheads
By default, man2html wraps section heads in HTML header
tags. See the SECTION HEAD MAP FILE section below for
additional information. This option may be specified
to disabled this feature.
-pgsize lines
The lines argument specifies the number of lines making
up the page size (length) of the formatted nroff input.
The default value is 66.
-seealso
If the -cgiurl option has been specified, then this
option restricts the creation of links to other manual
pages to the SEE ALSO section only.
-solaris
If the -k option has been specified, then this option
modifies its operation to process the alternate manual
page keyword search format produced by the man(1) util-
ity on systems running Solaris. See the KEYWORD SEARCH
section below for additional information.
-sun Do not require a section head to have bold overstriking
in the formatted nroff input. The option is called sun
because it was on a Sun workstation that section heads
in manpages were found to not be overstruck.
-title string
By default, man2html does not generate a HTML title
(<TITLE>). This option sets the title of the HTML out-
put to the specified string.
-topm lines
The lines argument specifies number number of lines
representing the top margin of the formatted nroff
input. The line count includes any running headers.
The default value is 7.
-uelem name
Use name as the name of the element to wrap underscored
characters. The default is I.
SECTION HEAD MAP FILE
The -headmap option may be used to customize which HTML
header tags, <H1> ... <H6>, are used in manpage section
headings. Normally, man2html treats lines that are flush to
the left margin (-leftm), and contain overstriking (over-
strike check is canceled with the -sun option), as section
heads. However, you can augment/override what HTML header
tags are used for any given section head.
In order to write a section head map file, you will need to
know about perl(1) associative arrays. You do not need to
be an expert in perl to write a map file, however, having
knowledge of perl allows you to be more clever.
Augmenting the Default Map
To add to the default mapping defined by man2html, your map
file will contain lines with the following syntax:
$SectionHead{'<section head text>'} = '<html header tag>';
where
<section head text>
is the text of the manpage section head. For example:
SYNOPSIS or DESCRIPTION.
<html header tag>
is the HTML header tag to wrap the section head in.
Legal values are: <H1>, <H2>, <H3>, <H4>, <H5>, <H6>.
Overriding the Default Map
To override the default mapping with your own, then your map
file will have the following syntax:
%SectionHead = (
'<section head text>', '<html header tag>',
'<section head text>', '<html header tag>',
# ... More section head/tag pairs
'<section head text>', '<html header tag>',
);
The Default Map
As of this writing, this is the default map used by
man2html:
%SectionHead = (
'\S.*OPTIONS.*' => '<H2>',
'AUTHORS?' => '<H2>',
'BUGS' => '<H2>',
'COMPATIBILITY' => '<H2>',
'DEPENDENCIES' => '<H2>',
'DESCRIPTION' => '<H2>',
'DIAGNOSTICS' => '<H2>',
'ENVIRONMENT' => '<H2>',
'ERRORS' => '<H2>',
'EXAMPLES' => '<H2>',
'EXTERNAL INFLUENCES' => '<H2>',
'FILES' => '<H2>',
'LIMITATIONS' => '<H2>',
'NAME' => '<H2>',
'NOTES?' => '<H2>',
'OPTIONS' => '<H2>',
'REFERENCES' => '<H2>',
'RETURN VALUE' => '<H2>',
'SECTION.*:' => '<H2>',
'SEE ALSO' => '<H2>',
'STANDARDS CONFORMANCE' => '<H2>',
'STYLE CONVENTION' => '<H2>',
'SYNOPSIS' => '<H2>',
'SYNTAX' => '<H2>',
'WARNINGS' => '<H2>',
'\s+Section.*:' => '<H3>',
);
$HeadFallback = '<H2>'; # Fallback tag if above is not found.
Check the perl source code of man2html for the latest
default mapping.
You can reassign the $HeadFallback variable to a different
value if you choose. This value is used as the header tag
of a section head if no matches are found in the
%SectionHead map.
Using Regular Expressions in the Map File
You may have noticed unusual characters in the default map
file, like "\s" or "*". The man2html utility actual treats
the <section head text> as a perl regular expression. If
you are comfortable with perl regular expressions, then you
have their full power to use in your map file.
Caution: The man2html utility already anchors the regular
expression to the beginning of the line with left margin
spacing specified by the -leftm option. Therefore, do not
use the `^' character to anchor your regular expression to
the beginning. However, you may end your expression with a
`$' to anchor it to the end of the line.
Since the <section head text> is actually a regular expres-
sion, you will have to be careful of special characters if
you want them to be treated literally. Any of the charac-
ters `[ ] ( ) . ^ { } $ * ? + |' should be escaped by pre-
fixing them by the `\' character if you want perl to treat
them "as is".
Caution: One should use single quotes instead of double
quotes to delimit <section head text>. This will preserve
any `\' characters for character escaping or when the `\' is
used for special perl character matching sequences (e.g.,
\s, \w, \S).
Other Tid-bits on the Map File
Comments can be inserted in the map file by using the '#'
character. Anything after, and including, the '#' character
is ignored, up to the end of line.
You might be thinking that the above is quite-a-bit-of-stuff
just for doing manpage section heads. However, you will be
surprised how much better the HTML output looks with header
tags, even though, everything else is in a <PRE> tag.
LINKING TO OTHER MANPAGES
The man2html utility allows the ability to link to other
manpage references. If the -cgiurl option is specified,
man2html will create anchors that link to other manpages.
The URL entered with the -cgiurl option is actually a tem-
plate that determines the actual URL used to link to other
manpages. The following variables are defined during run
time that may be used in the template string:
$title
The title of the manual page referenced.
$section
The section number of the manual page referenced.
$subsection
The subsection of the manual page referenced.
Any other text in the template is preserved "as is".
Caution: The man2html utility evaluates the template string
as a perl string expression. Therefore, one might need to
surround the variable names with '{}' (e.g., ${title}) so
that man2html properly recognizes the variable.
Note: If a CGI program calling man2html is actually a shell
script or a perl program, make sure to properly escape the
'$' character in the URL template to avoid variable interpo-
lation by the CGI program.
Normally, the URL calls a CGI program (hence the option
name), but the URL can easily link to statically converted
documents.
Example1:
The following template string is specified to call a CGI
program to retrieve the appropriate manpage linked to:
/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=${section}${subsection}&topic=${title}
If the ls(1) manpage is referenced in the SEE ALSO section,
the above template will translate to the following URL:
/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=ls
The actual HTML markup will look like the following:
<A HREF="/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=ls">ls(1)</A>
Example2:
The following template string is specified to retrieve pre-
converted manpages:
http://foo.org/man$section/$title.$section$subsection.html
If the mount(1M) manpage is referenced, the above template
will translate to the following URL:
http://foo.org/man1/mount.1M.html
The actual HTML markup will look like the following:
<A HREF="http://foo.org/man1/mount.1M.html">mount(1M)</A>
-cgiurlexp
The option -cgiurlexp is a more general form of the -cgiurl
option. -cgiurlexp allows one to specify a general Perl
expression. For example:
$title=~/^db_/i?"$title.html":"/cgi-bin/man?$title+$section"
A -cgiurl string can be expressed as follows with -cgiur-
lexp:
return "string"
KEYWORD SEARCH
The man2html utility has the ability to process keyword
search output generated by the man -k or apropos commands,
through the use of the -k option. The man2html utility will
generate an HTML document of the keyword search input having
the following format:
o All manpage references are listed by section.
o Within each section listing, the manpage references are
sorted alphabetically (case-sensitive) in a <DL> tag.
The manpage references are listed in the <DT> section,
and the summary text is listed in the <DD> section.
o Each manpage reference listed is a hyperlink to the
actual manpage as specified by the -cgiurl option.
This ability to process keyword searches gives nice added
functionality to a WWW forms interface to man(1). Even if
you have statically converted manpages to HTML via another
man->HTML program, you can use man2html and "man -k" to pro-
vide keyword search capabilities easily for your HTML man-
pages.
Processing Keyword Search Results
Unfortunately, there is no standard controlling the format
of keyword search results. The man2html utility tries it
best to handle all the variations. However, the keyword
search results generated by the Solaris operating system is
different enough from other systems that a special command-
line option (-solaris) must be specified to handle its out-
put.
Example of raw Solaris-type keyword search results:
strcpy strcpy (9f) - copy a string from one location to another.
strcpy string (3c) - string operations
strncpy strcpy (9f) - copy a string from one location to another.
strncpy string (3c) - string operations
If keyword search results on your systems appear in the fol-
lowing format:
<topic> <actual_manpage> (#) - Description
then you need to specify the -solaris option in addition to
the -k option.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Different systems format manpages differently. Here is a
list of recommended command-line options for certain sys-
tems:
Convex: <defaults should be okay>
HP: -leftm 1 -topm 8
Sun: -sun (and -solaris when using -k)
Some line spacing gets lost in the formatted nroff since the
spacing would occur in the middle of a page break. This can
cause text to be merged that shouldn't be merged when
man2html depaginates the text. To avoid this problem,
man2html keeps track of the margin indent right before and
after a page break. If the margin width of the line after
the page break is less than the line before the page break,
then man2html inserts a blank line in the HTML output.
A manpage cross-reference is detected by the following
pseudo expression: [A-z.-+_]+([0-9][A-z]?)
The man2html utility only recognizes lines with " - " (the
normal separator between manpage references and summary
text) while in keyword search mode.
The man2html utility can be hooked in a CGI script/program
to convert manpages on the fly. This is the reason for the
-cgiurl option.
LIMITATIONS
The order that section head mapping is searched is not
defined. Therefore, if two or more <section head text> can
match a give manpage section, there is no way to determine
which map tag is chosen.
If -seealso is specified, all xrefs are detected after the -
SEE ALSO heading. In other words, sections after SEE ALSO
may contain hyperlinked xrefs.
BUGS
Text that is flush to the left margin, but is not actually a
section head, can be mistaken for a section head. This mis-
take is more likely when the -sun option is in affect.
VERSION
This documentation describes man2html version 3.0.1
SEE ALSO
man(1), nroff(1), perl(1)
http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/man2html.html
AUTHOR
Earl Hood
ehood@medusa.acs.uci.edu
ERRORS AND OMISSIONS
Troff version of this document initially created for version
2.1.0 by C. Jeffery Small (jeff@cjsa.com) by copying, refor-
matting, rearranging and partially rewriting the contents of
the ascii text file doc/man2html.txt.
Man(1) output converted with
man2html