ESC x man and "man -k"

ESC x man and "man -k"

[Joseph Brenner]

I've always liked the man feature:
  man -k <search_term>
Which does something like an "apropos" search on man pages.

I used to use this feature often inside of emacs, first doing an
  ESC x man
then at the prompt, entering:
  -k <search_term>

Now, with a recent "cvs emacs" (soon to be called "bizarre emacs", I fear),
I find that I can't type the space after the -k. 

Is this supposed to be a feature?  How can I fix it?

Re: ESC x man and "man -k"

[Kevin Rodgers]

Joseph Brenner wrote:
> I've always liked the man feature:
>   man -k <search_term>
> Which does something like an "apropos" search on man pages.
> 
> I used to use this feature often inside of emacs, first doing an
>   ESC x man
> then at the prompt, entering:
>   -k <search_term>
> 
> Now, with a recent "cvs emacs" (soon to be called "bizarre emacs", I fear),
> I find that I can't type the space after the -k. 
> 
> Is this supposed to be a feature?  How can I fix it?

It must be doing completion on the option letter.

Type C-q SPC instead of just SPC.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA

Re: ESC x man and "man -k" (possible bug?)

[tomas]

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On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 09:07:59PM -0800, Joseph Brenner wrote:
> 
> I've always liked the man feature:
>   man -k <search_term>
> Which does something like an "apropos" search on man pages.
> 
> I used to use this feature often inside of emacs, first doing an
>   ESC x man
> then at the prompt, entering:
>   -k <search_term>
> 
> Now, with a recent "cvs emacs" (soon to be called "bizarre emacs", I fear),
> I find that I can't type the space after the -k. 
> 
> Is this supposed to be a feature?  How can I fix it?

I guess it's an unwanted interaction with some supposed-to-be-friendly
argument entry mechanism. Try entering M-<space> (i.e. ALT-<space> or
ESC-<space> [1] instead of just <space>) after the "-k". 

Regards

- --------
[1] Ah, yes... my window manager helpfully pops up something I'll never
use on ALT-<space>. Sigh.

- -- tomás
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Re: ESC x man and "man -k"

[Joseph Brenner]

Kevin Rodgers <kevin.d.rodgers@gmail.com> writes:
> Joseph Brenner wrote:
>> I've always liked the man feature:
>>   man -k <search_term>
>> Which does something like an "apropos" search on man pages.
>>
>> I used to use this feature often inside of emacs, first doing an
>>   ESC x man
>> then at the prompt, entering:
>>   -k <search_term>
>>
>> Now, with a recent "cvs emacs" (soon to be called "bizarre emacs", I fear),
>> I find that I can't type the space after the -k.
>>
>> Is this supposed to be a feature?  How can I fix it?
>
> It must be doing completion on the option letter.
>
> Type C-q SPC instead of just SPC.

Yes, that seems to work... but I decided I might as well do it
like this:

  (defun man-apropos-search (search-term)
    "Do a keyword search of man pages, cf. 'man -k SEARCH-TERM'."
    (interactive "ssearch term for man pages: ")
    (man (concat "-k " search-term)))

  (global-set-key "\M-om" 'man-apropos-search)