DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / doc-base / install-docs.8.en
INSTALL-DOCS(8) Debian INSTALL-DOCS(8)

install-docs - manage online Debian documentation

 install-docs [options] -i,--install | -r,--remove | -c,--check file [ file ... ]
 install-docs [options] -I,--install-all | -C,--install-changed | -R,--remove-all
 install-docs [options] -s,--status docid [ docid ... ]
 install-docs [options] --dump-db dbname
 install-docs -h,--help | -V,--version

install-docs is a tool allow Debian package maintainers to register documentation to various documentation systems. It currently supports dhelp, dwww, dochelp, and doc-central browsers.

This manual page provides a quick synopsis of install-docs usage. Full documentation can be found in the documentation, including a description of the control file syntax and grammar.

Operate verbosely.
Print some debugging information.
Inhibit running dwww-build-menu(8), and dhelp_parse(8).
Set the root directory to dir instead of `/'. Useful and valid only with the --check action.

Below is list of possible actions install-docs could handle. There can be only one action option passed to install-docs, moreover the action with its arguments must be the last option passed.

Each file argument should be the full path for the doc-base control file (i.e. `/usr/share/doc-base/some_file' or `/etc/doc-base/documents/some_file'), and each docid should be the document identifier (Document identifiers are set in the `Document' field of the control file, and usually correspond to the package name.)

If file or docid equals `-' (the minus sign), the list of arguments is read from the standard input (each file name or document id in separate line).

Install the documentation described by the control file file.
Remove the documentation identified by the control file file.
Check the control file file and display number of possible problems found. Use with --verbose to get the actual locations of errors and warnings. If --rootdir was also given, its argument will be prepended to names of the files given if the `Files' and `Index' fields of the file.
De-register all registered documents.
(Re)register all documents from /usr/share/doc-base and /etc/doc-base/documents.
Compare contents of /usr/share/doc-base and /etc/doc-base/documents directories with registered documents database and de-register any files that are missing and (re)register only changed or new files.
Display the status of the document identifier docid.
Deprecated option. Does nothing.
Dumps contents of internal databases, for debugging purposes. dbname can be either files.db or status.db.
Show a short help message.
Display version information.

The following features were added in version 0.8.4, please make sure to add proper `Conflicts' or `Depends' lines if you would like to use them in your package's scripts:

  • support for passing more than one argument to the -i and -r actions,
  • reading arguments from the standard input,
  • -I,--install-all, -R, ---remove-all, -c, --check actions,
  • -d, --debug, -h, --help options.

The -C, --install-changed, --dump-db, -V, --version options were added in 0.8.12.

/usr/share/doc-base/
The location of doc-base control files provided by various packages.
/etc/doc-base/documents/
The location of doc-base control files provided by local administrator.
/var/lib/doc-base/info/documents/
The location of registered control files.
/var/lib/doc-base/info/status.db
Statuses of registered documents.
/var/lib/doc-base/info/files.db
Timestamps and documents ids of registered doc-base files.

See <http://bugs.debian.org/doc-base>.

dhelp(1), doccentral(1), dochelp(1), dwww(7), Debian doc-base Manual /usr/share/doc/doc-base/doc-base.html/index.html

This program was originally written by Christian Schwarz <schwarz@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system, and the next maintainer was Adam Di Carlo <aph@debian.org>. Robert Luberda <robert@debian.org> is currently maintaining and extending it.

This software was meant to be for the benefit of the entire Debian user and developer community. If you are interested in being involved with this software, please join the mailing list <debian-doc@lists.debian.org>.

25 January 2021 doc-base v0.11.1