MANDOC.DB(5) BSD File Formats Manual MANDOC.DB(5)NAMEmandoc.db — manual page database
DESCRIPTION
The mandoc.db SQLite3 file format is used to store information about
installed manual pages to facilitate semantic searching for manuals.
Each manual page tree contains its own mandoc.db file; see FILES for
examples.
Such database files are generated by makewhatis(8) and used by apropos(1)
and whatis(1).
One line in the following tables describes:
mpages One physical manual page file, no matter how many times and under
which names it may appear in the file system.
mlinks One entry in the file system, no matter which content it points
to.
names One manual page name, no matter whether it appears in a page
header, in a NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or as a file name.
keys One chunk of text from some macro invocation.
Each record in the latter three tables uses its pageid column to point to
a record in the mpages table.
The other columns are as follows; unless stated otherwise, they are of
type TEXT.
mpages.desc The description line (‘Nd’) of the page.
mpages.form An INTEGER bit field. If bit FORM_GZ is set, the page is
compressed and requires gunzip(1) for display. If bit
FORM_SRC is set, the page is unformatted, that is in mdoc(7)
or man(7) format, and requires mandoc(1) for display. If
bit FORM_SRC is not set, the page is formatted, i.e. a ‘cat’
page.
mlinks.sec The manual section as found in the subdirectory name.
mlinks.arch The manual architecture as found in the subdirectory name,
or "any".
mlinks.name The manual name as found in the file name.
names.bits An INTEGER bit mask telling whether the name came from a
header line, from the NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or from a
file name. Bits are defined in <mansearch.h>.
names.name The name itself.
keys.bits An INTEGER bit mask telling which semantic contexts the key
was found in; defined in <mansearch.h>, documented in
apropos(1).
keys.key The string found in those contexts.
FILES
/usr/share/man/mandoc.db The manual page database for the base system.
/usr/X11R6/man/mandoc.db The same for the X(7) Window System.
/usr/local/man/mandoc.db The same for packages(7).
SEE ALSOapropos(1), man(1), sqlite3(1), whatis(1), mansearch(3), makewhatis(8)HISTORY
A manual page database /usr/lib/whatis first appeared in 2BSD. The
present format first appeared in OpenBSD 5.6.
AUTHORS
The original version of makewhatis(8) was written by Bill Joy in 1979.
An SQLite3 version was first implemented by Kristaps Dzonsons
⟨kristaps@bsd.lv⟩ in 2012. The present database format was designed by
Ingo Schwarze ⟨schwarze@openbsd.org⟩ in 2014.
BSD April 29, 2024 BSD
