HELP2MAN
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: May 2016
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NAME
help2man - generate a simple manual page
SYNOPSIS
help2man
[
,OPTION/]...
,EXECUTABLE/
DESCRIPTION
`help2man' generates a man page out of `--help' and `--version' output.
- -n, --name=,STRING/
-
description for the NAME paragraph
- -s, --section=,SECTION/
-
section number for manual page (1, 6, 8)
- -m, --manual=,TEXT/
-
name of manual (User Commands, ...)
- -S, --source=,TEXT/
-
source of program (FSF, Debian, ...)
- -L, --locale=,STRING/
-
select locale (default "C")
- -i, --include=,FILE/
-
include material from `FILE'
- -I, --opt-include=,FILE/
-
include material from `FILE' if it exists
- -o, --output=,FILE/
-
send output to `FILE'
- -p, --info-page=,TEXT/
-
name of Texinfo manual
- -N, --no-info
-
suppress pointer to Texinfo manual
- -l, --libtool
-
exclude the `lt-' from the program name
- --help
-
print this help, then exit
- --version
-
print version number, then exit
EXECUTABLE should accept `--help' and `--version' options and produce output on
stdout although alternatives may be specified using:
- -h, --help-option=,STRING/
-
help option string
- -v, --version-option=,STRING/
-
version option string
- --version-string=,STRING/
-
version string
- --no-discard-stderr
-
include stderr when parsing option output
INCLUDE FILES
Additional material may be included in the generated output with the
--include
and
--opt-include
options. The format is simple:
[section]
text
/pattern/
text
Blocks of verbatim *roff text are inserted into the output either at
the start of the given
[section]
(case insensitive), or after a paragraph matching
/pattern/.
Patterns use the Perl regular expression syntax and may be followed by
the
i,
s
or
m
modifiers (see
perlre(1)).
Lines before the first section or pattern which begin with `-' are
processed as options. Anything else is silently ignored and may be
used for comments, RCS keywords and the like.
The section output order (for those included) is:
NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
FILES
EXAMPLES
other
AUTHOR
REPORTING BUGS
COPYRIGHT
SEE ALSO
Any
[NAME]
or
[SYNOPSIS]
sections appearing in the include file will replace what would have
automatically been produced (although you can still override the
former with
--name
if required).
Other sections are prepended to the automatically produced output for
the standard sections given above, or included at
other
(above) in the order they were encountered in the include file.
Placement of the text within the section may be explicitly requested by using
the syntax
[<section],
[=section]
or
[>section]
to place the additional text before, in place of, or after the default
output respectively.
AVAILABILITY
The latest version of this distribution is available on-line from:
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/help2man/
AUTHOR
Written by Brendan O'Dea <
bod@debian.org>
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <
bug-help2man@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010,
2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
SEE ALSO
The full documentation for
help2man
is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the
info
and
help2man
programs are properly installed at your site, the command
-
info help2man
should give you access to the complete manual.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- INCLUDE FILES
-
- AVAILABILITY
-
- AUTHOR
-
- REPORTING BUGS
-
- COPYRIGHT
-
- SEE ALSO
-
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