Re: [PATCH 1/3] gnu: man-db: Pass --with-col to configure.

[Thompson, David]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2015 at 10:57 AM, Alex Kost <address@hidden> wrote:
> Quote from "man man":
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> Normally, when output is not being directed to a terminal (such as to a
> file or a pipe), formatting characters are discarded to make it easier
> to read the result without special tools.
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> However it does not happen with the current "man", as may be checked for
> example by evaluating the following in Emacs:
>
> (let ((buf (get-buffer-create "*man true*")))
>   (with-current-buffer buf
>     (call-process "man" nil t nil "true"))
>   (pop-to-buffer buf))
>
> As you can see there are escape sequences (such as "^[[1m") there, which
> shouldn't happen.  Configuring man-db "--with-col" fixes the issue (at
> least for me).
>
> BTW (a note for Ludovic), the current man behaviour "breaks" completions
> of many commands provided by "pcmpl-args" emacs package, because
> 'pcmpl-args-extract-argspecs-from-manpage' can't parse a man page to find
> completions.  For example, "sudo --<TAB>" (in shell-mode) doesn't complete
> anything.  After this patch it should work.

Nice catch.  LGTM!

- Dave