Shell script wrapper around help2man
This is a script for Debian packagers which uses help2man to automate
the generation of simple man pages from the output of the --help option
of executables in a package.
It is easily configured in the package source; the man page files can be generated at build time and will be installed to the correct directories.
-h --help Show a help message.
--clean Return everything in the package debian/ directory
to the state it was in before running the script.
--test <file>
Display the manpage that would be generated for this file.
Nothing is changed in the source directory.
--makeone <file>
Generate a single man file for this one executable and
place it in the working directory (package source root).
The script will look for files in the debian/ directory:
packagename.section.genman-list
packagename.genman-list
or
genman-list
If section ( 1~8 ) is missing, 1 is assumed.
If packagename is also missing, it is got from dpkg-parsechangelog.
The file should contain a list of the executables
(paths relative to the package root) whose manpages are to be built.
Shell globs may be used.
Multiple genman-list files can be used, for source building
multiple packages, or for different manual sections.
Built manpages will be put in debian/genman-pages/, and their paths will be appended to an existing debian/*manpages file, or put in a new manpages or packagename.manpages file.
The script should be run from the package source root directory.
Run it manually before building the package,
or to auto-run, add this to debian/rules:
(adjust the path to genman.sh if necessary)
override_dh_installman:
debian/genman.sh
dh_installman
override_dh_clean:
dh_clean
debian/genman.sh --clean
Also add help2man to the source package's Build-Depends in debian/control.