On Jun 20, 2017, at 18:53, Stephen Baber wrote: > Hi MacPorts architects/maintainers, > > Author of JPortsUI here. I have built features into the next version > of my application that use the "whatis" DB to describe the executable > files installed after MacPorts completes a "port install foo". > Presently I am letting the user know that this feature won't work for > them until they Terminal in and run "sudo /usr/libexec/makewhatis > /opt/local/share/man". > > My question is, were there configuration consequences that MacPorts > needed to avoid as the reason it does not "makewhatis" itself upon > updating or installing ports? All I can foresee is that the > additional information might change expected responses from "apropos" > (which would never be used in a production shell script anyway). > Should I not even be encouraging my users to run "makewhatis" in your > "/opt/local/share/man/" directory?
Other developers may have other answers as to why MacPorts doesn't do this, but for myself, the answer is that I'm not aware of makewhatis or what it does.
