Viewing the Digital UNIX Reference Pages

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The reference pages are displayed by an automated tool called webman. This tool works in the following way:

1. When you click on the Reference Pages bookshelf item, webman presents a page that lists the available reference page directories. The list can include custom locations established by your system administrator and enabled by your MANPATH environment variable. The standard locations are:

   /usr/share/man

   Base system reference pages, present if installed. Might not include all of the reference pages, depending on what selection of subsets is installed. Might also include reference pages for layered products if any are installed.

   /usr/dt/share/man

   Common Desktop Environment reference pages, present if installed. Might not include all of the reference pages, depending on what selection of subsets is installed.

   /DOCUMENTATION/HTML/usr/share/man

   Base system reference pages (duplicate of the complete set of files that Digital supplies for /usr/share/man), present if the documentation CD-ROM is installed.

   /DOCUMENTATION/HTML/usr/dt/share/man

   Common Desktop Environment reference pages (duplicate of the complete set of files that Digital supplies for /usr/dt/share/man), present if the documentation CD-ROM is installed.

   The order of this list is determined by webman.

   This display also includes a field into which you can enter a keyword for which you want a list of related reference pages. The listing includes hypertext links to the pages in the display.

2. When you click on a directory from the list, webman presents an alphabetical listing of the contents of that directory. If a given reference page is listed twice, the two files are:
   1. First, an uncompressed file. Typically, this file has been edited by your system administrator to reflect local information.

   2. Second, a compressed file. This file is the original file supplied by Digital.

3. When you choose a file from the directory listing, webman displays the selected reference page.

Within a reference page display, cross-references to other reference pages are hypertext links. A given hypertext link can resolve to more than one possible file. The search order is as follows:

1. Directories are searched in the order defined by the initial list. As soon as a file is found that matches the cross-reference, the search ends and webman displays that file.

2. Within a given directory, if there are both an uncompressed file and a compressed file, the uncompressed file is given preference.