man command not working

[K_märkt]

Hi,
I'm very new to unix, so I'm mostly running through various tutorials to get a feel for it. I've stumbled into a problem which I cannot find an answer to in any documentation so far: trying to get to command manuals with man "command" gives the output "No manual entry for 'command'", same with every common command I've tried. The man command itself seems to work, asking for what page I want. Also, I can see various man pages in /usr/share/man. So it seems that man simply do not know where to look. Is it a configuring/PATH problem? Can I (with my very limited knowledge...) fix this? I'm running Mac OS Snow Leopard.
Thanks,
K-märkt

[hayne]

Have you changed anything in your shell configuration? E.g. created a "dot" file in your home folder?
Which shell are you using?

See this Unix FAQ for more info.

[K_märkt]

Yes, I have a .bash_profile there, containing the single row "export PATH=$PATH:~/bin"; however, I couldn't get to the man pages before I created that either. Perhaps I should remove it anyway?

K_märkt

[hayne]

Quote: Originally Posted by K_märkt Yes, I have a .bash_profile there, containing the single row "export PATH=$PATH:~/bin"; however, I couldn't get to the man pages before I created that either. Perhaps I should remove it anyway?

Yes - definitely try removing that file (and all other "dot" files that you created) and then open a new Terminal window.

And by the way, I don't think ~ works when setting PATH like above - try using $HOME instead.

[K_märkt]

I removed the .bash_profile and opened a new window, but with the same result - no man pages can be found. The "export PATH=$PATH:~/bin" is an example from Enzer's Unix for Mac OS Tiger and it did work for finding the small scripts I had put in the bin folder, but maybe there are more straight forward ways of doing it.
Thanks for the tip on the Unix FAQ, I found it really useful! What I would also like to look at is of course the man man to see how the link between man and the actual man pages look, but... well. Thanks again.

[hayne]

1) Have you made any other configuration changes that would affect the shell? E.g. have you edited any files in /etc ?

2) Try creating a fresh new user account and then log in as that user to see if the problem exists there.

3) If nothing else helps, you could look at what files are opened by the 'man' command - you could do this by running the following command in a different Terminal window while you run the 'man' command:

sudo filebyproc.d | grep man

[Hal Itosis]

I don't have Snow Leopard yet, but i suspect it should be similar to 10.5

What do you get for these two commands?

$ /bin/cat /etc/manpaths
/usr/share/man
/usr/local/share/man

$ /usr/libexec/path_helper
PATH="/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/Users/halito/bin:/usr/libexec:/usr/X11/bin"; export PATH
MANPATH="/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/X11/man"; export MANPATH

-HI-

EDIT: i s'pose we should look at the (system's) profile too... here's mine:

$ /bin/cat /etc/profile
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
	eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
	[ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi

[K_märkt]

Thanks for all the suggestions! This is what I've tried so far:

hayne:
1) No, haven't edited any files in /etc or deliberately made any configuration changes - but I saw that some programs I'm using: LaTex, ebiotools etc have created .files in my user directory.
2) I created a new user but with the same result - "No manual entry for xxx".
3) I will try this now.

Hal Itosis:
The first output is identical to yours:
/usr/share/man
/usr/local/share/man

The second output looks like this:
PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/Users/k_markt/molevol/bin:/usr/local/genome/bin:/usr/texbin:/usr/ebiotools/bin"; export PATH;
MANPATH="/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/X11/share/man:/opt/local/share/man:/usr/ebiotools/share/man"; export MANPATH;

There are some differences here, should I try to change them? If so, how do I do that?

The system's profile output is 30 rows including comments from various software (deleted below):
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

PATH="/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/genome/bin"
export PATH

if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
[ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi

if [ `whoami` != "root" ]
then
PATH="$PATH:/usr/texbin"
export PATH
fi

if [ `whoami` != "root" ]
then
PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"
export PATH
fi

if [ -f "/usr/ebiotools/etc/profile" ]; then
source "/usr/ebiotools/etc/profile" "/usr/ebiotools"
else
echo "Warning: eBioTools was not initialized because the file /usr/ebiotools/etc/profile could not be found. Please correct this by reinstalling eBioTools or editing /etc/profile."
fi

I do not not know to what extent these differences matter. Do you find any odd things here?

[hayne]

I'd recommend restoring the system-wide file /etc/profile back to what Apple supplied.
Put any of the modifications needed for those 3rd-party programs into your user's ~/.profile instead. (And write to the developers of those 3rd-party programs and chastise them for changing things system-wide.)

[K_märkt]

Ok, and how do I do that? And are what Apple supplied what I can see in Hal Itosis' output?

[Hal Itosis]

Quote: Originally Posted by K_märkt And are what Apple supplied what I can see in Hal Itosis' output?

That's the stock Apple /etc/profile for Leopard. [i don't have SL yet.]

[hayne]

Quote: Originally Posted by K_märkt Ok, and how do I do that?

I was hoping that you had a backup (e.g. via Time Machine) of the original /etc/profile file.

[K_märkt]

Yes, I do, but I don't know how to restore a file from Time Machine that I can't see in the Aqua interface.

[hayne]

You can get to any folder in Finder by using the "Go to Folder" menu item from Finder's "Go" menu, then typing in the path of the folder.

[K_märkt]

I restored the profile file (identical to the one you showed me above) - and am now browsing some man files. Thanks to you both!

PS. As you advised, I'll try to find a suitable place for the rest of the junk I found in that file.

/K