[PATCH] man: let the user specify the format command

[Denys Vlasenko]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 9:16 AM, Alastair Hughes
<hobbitalastair at yandex.com> wrote:
> Package: busybox
> Version: v1.25.1
> Severity: wishlist
>
> The attached patch lets the user configure the command used to format man pages by busybox's man.
> I'm using heirloom-doctools instead of groff in a toy distro, which doesn't provide gtbl (just tbl) and doesn't work with -Tascii (I use -Tutf8 instead), so I am using this to let me view man pages.
> I think that it would also be useful if busybox was built without seamless decompression - the command could pipe the man page through gunzip before sending it on.
>
> I've tested this by building with the defaults, with a changed command, and without man.

The "big" man tool uses /etc/man_db.conf to override these.

I committed a change which allows that to work:

    man: allow nroff and tbl commands be overridden; unmangle writing to files

    Parse this in config files:
         DEFINE col ...
         DEFINE tbl ...
         DEFINE nroff ...
    Add width options to nroff command line.
    Use "tbl", not "gtbl", as default tbl command.
    Export GROFF_NO_SGR=1 and use "col -b -p -x" instead of pager when
writing to file.

Please try current git, try making it work for you with suitable
/etc/man_db.conf,
let me know if it's not sufficient.