> > > I guess since know one has responded to this question concerning a > > clean way for an RPM to alter the MANPATH (i.e. alter it non-destructively > > and using a safe mechanism to do so) says that there is not such a > > clean method (please someone correct me if I am wrong). If this is the case > > then perhaps a later RedHat release could consider this. I can think of a > > few ways of acomplishing this, but probably the simplest would be to > > do something like HP does, which I mentioned in the P.S. of my previous > > email: > > > > P.S. on HP/UX the system MANPATH was constructed from the file > > /etc/MANPATH which contained a : delimited list of directories, > > which made it very easy for depots (HP rpms) to alter the MANPATH, > > and was very necessary in an architecture where most every package > > gets its own directory under /opt. > > > > The key problem I see with this method is that I don't believe gnu man suppor > > ts > > this (again I would like to be wrong), but what I think could easily be done > > is > > > I'm sure it does, but I can't be bothered reading the man page. > > I'm sure reading the man page will provide all the answers. > I most humbly submit that I have read the man page (which I reffered to). Not to toot my horn, but I have been doing this UNIX thing in one fashion or another for at least 10 years. Reading the man page is the first thing I do (well in truth looking at configs and source is sometimes the first thing I do, but asking a question on a list where one is subject to public flogging is not the first thing I do). > > I'd not undo the changes when the rpm is removed though - it just might be > possible that something else wants the same change. Very good advice. > > I recommend using grep to test whether the change is actually needed, than maybe > ed to implement it. grep and sed and all their other ilk are all bad ideas for something that may be distributed to lots of places. The best procedure is to understand the format of the config, and parse it. Once you have the parse tree, you can then confidently (provided your undrstanding was true) parse it. > > Plenty of man pages to read there;-) > And info pages, and web pages probably if you can phrase your search query correctly. ...james
