Subject: Re: Info versus Man
From: Brian Dessent <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 13:58:30 -0800

zzapper wrote:
> 
> Hi Ya All
> 
> Is INFO just a viewer for Man Pages, or does it have it's own
> database?
> 
> Is INFO preferred to MAN ??
> 
> (Sorry for hogging this NG recently)
> zzapper

Yes, they are completely seperate.  The 'info' program reads and
displays texinfo documents, which live in /usr/info.  texinfo documents
are organized into nodes, which leads to a sort of link structure or
heirarchy.  The 'info' program is just one way of formatting/viewing
them, they can also be easily formatted as PostScript, HTML, etc.

The 'man' program formats and displays manpages which are a much older
format (nroff/groff).  They contain markup to make sections stand out,
highlight commands vs. normal text, etc. but they are still essentially
flat text files with embellishment.  They live in /usr/man.

The GNU people decided one day that man pages had worn out their welcome
and so they developed the texinfo project to support a new format of
documentation.  Thus, the preferred docu for all the GNU utils are the
texinfo files, and the manpages are really an afterthought in a lot of
cases.  However many people hate the 'info' program and just want plain
old manpages, so I wouldn't expect them to go away any time soon.  
Personally I have mixed feelings about both.  If you ever try to use the
manpage for 'bash' you quickly realize how cumbersome it is, compared to
viewing the HTML version of the texinfo docs online.  However, for quick
and dirty things that basically consist of a short summary of some
options the manpage cannot be beat.

Brian

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