Xref: news2.mv.net comp.os.msdos.djgpp:4990
From: broeker AT PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_DOMAIN_FILE (Hans-Bernhard Broeker)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: A more readable faq???
Date: 14 Jun 1996 12:07:08 GMT
Organization: RWTH -Aachen / Rechnerbetrieb Informatik
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <4prklc$8l7@news.rwth-aachen.de>
References: <Pine DOT SGI DOT 3 DOT 93 DOT 960614085819 DOT 3646A-100000 AT gibson DOT eee DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph>
NNTP-Posting-Host: axpcl6.physik.rwth-aachen.de
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Orlando Andico (orly AT gibson DOT eee DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph) wrote:
> Actually, I don't totally buy the FSF's idea that man pages are obsolete..
> if I want to get the syntax of a C library function, I'd rather do a "man
> select" than wade through multi-megabytes of Info file to find it..

No problem, just store this cute little one-line batch file in your
path, and call it 'man3.bat' (FYI: the 3 stands for library functions in
the Unix man system)

	@info libc alpha %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

now you can just type

	man3 printf

and, bang, there is he documentation of printf. Simple, once you've
got it, eh?

In case anyone wants to knwo how this works: all non-option command
line arguments to info.exe are interpreted as menu item
choices. So the above command does exactly the same thing as typing
this sequence of keystrokes:

	info<ret>
	mlibc<ret>
	malpha<ret>
	mprintf<ret>

Typing this yourself will show you that this gets you from the central
info directory to the libc info, from there to the alphabetical index
of the libc functions, and from there directly to the printf docu. This
technique can obviously be used for other cases as well. To bring up
the FAQ a bit faster, without having to select it first, just write
'info faq', and there you are.

Hans-Bernhard Broeker (Aachen, Germany)