Package: man-db
Version: 2.8.5-1
Severity: normal
Dear Maintainer,
modern computers are now that fast, that the text from standard error
gets rolled out of sight without noticing.
This can be seen by adding a '.tm' lines with text, for example
early, in the middle and at the end of a big file and a small one, for
example bash(1) and test(1).
I have had to write a script to catch the output of standard error in
a temporary file.
a) if the file is empty it is deleted
b) if not, a message is displayed when "man" is quit to inform the
user about it, and asked if he wants to see it.
c) No: file deleted
Yes: file is read with the pager (less). After that the user is
asked if he wants to keep it or delete it.
Such a procedure should be part of the "man" program.
If the user selects '--warning=...' the warnings are only sent to the
terminal if the environmental variable "MAN_KEEP_STDERR" is set, and
then it is improbable that the user notices something strange and rolls
the screen down.
There should be a notice about this where "--warning" is explained,
otherwise no warning can be noticed (if one has a fast enough computer)
in the usual interactive mode, which is the most common one.
"man" should abort with an error message, if '--warning' is selected
without "MAN_KEEP_STDERR" being active in the interactive mode.
I think that practically all users of "man" do not type a redirection
for the standard error as man pages should already be clean in this
regard, but my experience shows that is not the case.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'proposed-updates'), (500,
'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 4.9.144-1 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=is_IS.iso88591, LC_CTYPE=is_IS.iso88591 (charmap=ISO-8859-1),
LANGUAGE=is_IS.iso88591 (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)
Versions of packages man-db depends on:
ii bsdmainutils 11.1.2+b1
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.70
ii dpkg 1.19.2
ii groff-base 1.22.4-2
ii libc6 2.28-6
ii libgdbm6 1.18.1-2
ii libpipeline1 1.5.1-1
ii libseccomp2 2.3.3-3
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.11.dfsg-1
man-db recommends no packages.
Versions of packages man-db suggests:
pn apparmor <none>
ii firefox-esr [www-browser] 60.5.1esr-1~deb9u1
ii groff 1.22.4-2
ii less 487-0.1+b1
ii lynx [www-browser] 2.8.9rel.1-3
ii w3m [www-browser] 0.5.3-37
-- debconf information:
man-db/auto-update: true
man-db/install-setuid: false
--
Bjarni I. Gislason
