OpenBSD manual page server

NAME

mandoc.db — manual page database

DESCRIPTION

The mandoc.db SQLite3 file format is used to store information about installed manual pages to facilitate semantic searching for manuals. Each manual page tree contains its own mandoc.db file; see FILES for examples.

Such database files are generated by makewhatis(8) and used by apropos(1) and whatis(1).

One line in the following tables describes:

mpages

One physical manual page file, no matter how many times and under which names it may appear in the file system.

mlinks

One entry in the file system, no matter which content it points to.

names

One manual page name, no matter whether it appears in a page header, in a NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or as a file name.

keys

One chunk of text from some macro invocation.

Each record in the latter three tables uses its pageid column to point to a record in the mpages table.

The other columns are as follows; unless stated otherwise, they are of type TEXT.

mpages.desc

The description line (‘Nd’) of the page.

mpages.form

An INTEGER bit field. If bit FORM_GZ is set, the page is compressed and requires gunzip(1) for display. If bit FORM_SRC is set, the page is unformatted, that is in mdoc(7) or man(7) format, and requires mandoc(1) for display. If bit FORM_SRC is not set, the page is formatted, i.e. a ‘cat’ page.

mlinks.sec

The manual section as found in the subdirectory name.

mlinks.arch

The manual architecture as found in the subdirectory name, or "any".

mlinks.name

The manual name as found in the file name.

names.bits

An INTEGER bit mask telling whether the name came from a header line, from the NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or from a file name. Bits are defined in <mansearch.h>.

names.name

The name itself.

keys.bits

An INTEGER bit mask telling which semantic contexts the key was found in; defined in <mansearch.h>, documented in apropos(1).

keys.key

The string found in those contexts.

FILES

/usr/share/man/mandoc.db

The manual page database for the base system.

/usr/X11R6/man/mandoc.db

The same for the X(7) Window System.

/usr/local/man/mandoc.db

The same for packages(7).

SEE ALSO

apropos(1), man(1), sqlite3(1), whatis(1), makewhatis(8)

HISTORY

A manual page database /usr/lib/whatis first appeared in 2BSD. The present format first appeared in OpenBSD 5.6.

AUTHORS

The original version of makewhatis(8) was written by Bill Joy in 1979. An SQLite3 version was first implemented by Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv> in 2012. The present database format was designed by Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org> in 2014.