From ehood@convex.com Tue Aug  2 09:43:18 1994
Article: 398 of comp.infosystems.announce
From: ehood@convex.com (Earl Hood)
Subject: New man2html (Tool to convert nroff text to HTML)
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 94 22:51:53 GMT-1:00
Organization: Engineering, Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx USA

Announcing a new version of man2html.  The new version supports linking
to cross-referenced manpages.  The linking capabilities are general
enough to support calls to custom CGI programs or static files.
 
You may find out more on man2html at
 
http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/
 
man2html is obtainable via FTP as
 
ftp.uci.edu/pub/dtd2html/perlWWW.15July.1994.tar.gz
 
Here is some excerpts from the man2html documentation:
 
   __________________________________________________________________________
 
                                   MAN2HTML
Description
 
   man2html takes formatted nroff in standard input (STDIN) and outputs
   the HTML to standard output (STDOUT). The formatted nroff output is
   surrounded with <PRE> tags with the following exceptions/additions:
 
     * Section heads are wrapped in HTML header tags. See Section Head
       Map File for more information. This feature can be turned off
       with the -noheads command-line option.
 
     * Overstriken words designated with the "<char><backspace><char>"
       sequences are wrapped in <STRONG> tags.
 
     * Overstriken words designated with the "_<backspace><char>"
       sequences (ie. underlined words) are wrapped in <EM> tags.
 
   man2html also does the following:
 
     * Merges the multi-page formatted nroff into a single page. See
       Usage for information on how to tell man2html the page size and
       margin width/heights of the formatted nroff. Depagination can be
       turned off with the -nodepage command-line option.
 
     * Creates links to other manpages if the -cgiurl command-line option
       is specified.
 
   By default, man2html does not put a title, <TITLE>, in the HTML file.
   However, one can specify a title via the -title command-line option.
 
...
     _________________________________________________________________
 
Linking to Other Manpages
 
   man2html allows the ability to link to other manpages referenced. If
   the -cgiurl option is specified, man2html will create anchors that
   link to other manpages.
 
   The URL entered with the -cgiurl option is actually a template that
   determines the actual URL used to link to other manpages. The
   following variables are defined during run time that may be used in
   the template string:
 
     * $title : The title of the manual page referenced.
     * $section: The section number of the manual page referenced.
     * $subsection: The subsection of the manual page referenced.
 
   Any other text in the template is preserved "as is".
 
   Caution:
          man2html evaluates the template string as a Perl expression.
          Therefore, one might need to surround the variable names with
          '{}' (eg. ${title}) so man2html properly recognizes the
          variable.
 
   Note:
          If a CGI program calling man2html is actuall a shell script or
          a Perl program, make sure to properly escape the '$' character
          in the URL template to avoid variable interpolation by the CGI
          program.
 
   Normally, the URL calls a CGI program (hence the option name), but the
   URL can easily link to statically converted documents.
 
  EXAMPLE1
 
   The following template string is specified to call a CGI program to
   retrieve the appropriate manpage linked to:
 
   man.cgi?$section$subsection+$title
 
   If the ls(1) manpage is referenced in the 'SEE ALSO' section, the
   above template will translate to the following URL:
 
   man.cgi?1+ls
 
   The actual HTML markup will look like the following:
 
   <A HREF="man.cgi?1+ls">ls(1)</A>
 
  EXAMPLE2
 
   The following template string is specified to retrieve pre-converted
   manpages:
 
   http://foo.org/man$section/$title.$section$subsection.html
 
   If the mount(1M) manpage is referenced, the above template will
   translate to the following URL:
 
   http://foo.org/man1/mount.1M.html
 
   The actual HTML markup will look like the following:
 
   <A HREF="http://foo.org/man1/mount.1M.html">mount(1M)</A>
 
     _________________________________________________________________
--
    Earl Hood                |   CONVEX Computer Corporation
    ehood@convex.com         |   3000 Waterview Parkway
    Phone: (214) 497-4387    |   P.O. Box 833851
    FAX: (214) 497-4500      |   Richardson, TX  75083-3851