DH_INSTALLMAN

Section: Debhelper (1)
Updated: 2002-04-13
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NAME

dh_installman - install man pages into package build directories

SYNOPSIS

dh_installman [debhelper options] [manpage ...]

DESCRIPTION

dh_installman is a debhelper program that handles installing man pages into the correct locations in package build directories. You tell it what man pages go in your packages, and it figures out where to install them based on the section field in their .TH line and their filename extension. It also supports translated man pages, by looking for extensions like .ll.8 and .ll_LL.8

If dh_installman seems to install a man page into the wrong section or with the wrong extension, this is because the man page has the wrong section listed in its .TH line. Edit the man page and correct the section, and dh_installman will follow suit. See to man(7) for details about the .TH section. If dh_installman seems to install a man page into a directory like /usr/share/man/pl/man1/, that is because your program has a name like ``foo.pl'', and dh_installman assumes that means it is translated into Polish. There is currently no support for resolving this ambiguity; programs in debian should proably not have extensions like that anyway.

Any man page filenames specified as parameters will be installed into the first package dh_installman is told to act on. By default, this is the first binary package in debian/control, but if you use -p, -i, or -a flags, it will be the first package specified by those flags.

Files named debian/package.manpages can list other man pages to be installed.

After the man page installation step, dh_installman will check to see if any of the man pages in the temporary directories of any of the packages it is acting on contain ``.so'' links. If so, it changes them to symlinks.

OPTIONS

-A, --all: Install all files specified by command line parameters in ALL packages acted on.
manpage ...: Install these man pages into the first package acted on. (Or in all packages if -A is specified).

NOTES

An older version of this program, dh_installmanpages(1), is still used by some packages, and so is still included in debhelper. It is, however, deprecated, due to its counterintuitive and inconsistent interface. Use this program instead.

AUTHOR

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 16:20:01 GMT, May 08, 2025