DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / dhelp / dhelp_parse.8.en
dhelp_parse(8) Debian Linux manual dhelp_parse(8)

dhelp_parse - Debian online help parser

dhelp_parse [ -r | -i | -a doc-base_file | -d doc-base_file ]

This program is used by package developers to register the documents included in a package.

In most cases it is called by install-docs (see doc-base package), which in turn is called from the postinst and prerm scripts of a Debian package.

An index of the registered documents is written in the directory /usr/share/doc/HTML

Displays the help page.
Adds the documentation found in the given doc-base files to the dhelp database.
Deletes the documentation found in the given doc-base files from the dhelp database.
Does an incremental update of the documents index for all documentation added with the -a switch after the last index update.
Ignored, kept for compatibility.

You should usually rely on install-docs to do the work for you, but if for some reason you want to use dhelp_parse directly (not recommended!), you have to call it like this:

if [ -x /usr/sbin/dhelp_parse ]; then
dhelp_parse -a /var/lib/doc-base/documents/foo
fi

if [ -x /usr/sbin/dhelp_parse ]; then
dhelp_parse -d /var/lib/doc-base/documents/foo
fi

Note that /var/lib/doc-base/documents/foo has to be a valid doc-base file (see doc-base documentation).

dhelp(1), install-docs(8)

This package was written by Esteban Manchado Velázquez (zoso@debian.org).

29 May 2008 Debian