MAKEFILE(0)

🎀 MAKEFILE(0) 🎀

okay so bestie, we're in MAKEFILE(0) — section zero, because this isn't a command you run, it's a whole entire makefile that builds the manual pages themselves 💅 and honestly? she's the main character of the man page pipeline and nobody ever thanks her.

🌸 NAME 🌸

Makefile — the build recipe that chews through the man page sources and spits out ${MAN0SRCS}: the file lists, the PostScript, the PDF, and the tarballs of both ✨

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

make all
make all.files
make man${_S}pages.files
make man${_S}pages.ps
make man${_S}pages.pdf
make man.tgz

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so like. this Makefile is the group chat admin of the man page build. <hotpink>all</hotpink> depends on ${MAN0SRCS}, and ${MAN0SRCS} is a stack of ${SECTIONS:@S@...@} loops — one pass for .files, one for .ps, one for .pdf — so you get a man1pages.files, a man1pages.ps, a man1pages.pdf, and so on for every section in ${SECTIONS} 🔥

the whole thing is one long <cyan>find | grep | sed | groff | grops</cyan> bender that ends in a tarball, and every single step writes to a .tmp and then ${MV}-s it into place, because we do not ship half-written files in this house 🙅‍♀️

⚠️ heads up bestie: # # Note: Needs ps2pdf to convert .ps to .pdf # — if you don't have ps2pdf installed, the PDF target is not gonna slay, she's gonna flop 😭 and that note is sitting right there in a # comment at the top of the file, iykyk.

🧚 VARIABLES 🧚

FILES — just makewhatis.sed, one lone icon.
FILESDIR — /usr/share/man, where she lives.
SECTIONS?= 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 — the manual sections she walks through. it's ?= so you can totally override it, no cap.
MANSRCDIRS= — "${.CURDIR}/../../.." ../../.. — the two spots find goes digging in.
OPTIMIZE_PDF?= — the sed glow-up, with three -e expressions:

OPTIMIZE_PDF?=  -e '/^level0 0 def/d' -e '/^level0 save/d' -e '/^level0 restore/d'

the comment above it says it "Takes out some fluff from the PostScript files created by grops which does some VM saving/restoring that bloats the PDF file pdf2ps generates. By uwe@NetBSD.org." — so, legendary uwe@NetBSD.org said the PostScript was giving bloated and we're deleting the fluff. periodt 💅

MAN0SRCS= — built up with +=, in this exact order:

MAN0SRCS=
MAN0SRCS+=      all.files
MAN0SRCS+=      ${SECTIONS:@S@man${S}pages.files@}
MAN0SRCS+=      ${SECTIONS:@S@man${S}pages.ps@}
MAN0SRCS+=      ${SECTIONS:@S@man${S}pages.pdf@}

that @S@ thing? it's a loop variable, bestie — ${S} gets stamped into every section number 🌀

CLEANFILES+= — the cleanup crew:

CLEANFILES+=    ${MAN0SRCS}
CLEANFILES+=    *.tmp
CLEANFILES+=    toc? tocx?

🔥 TARGETS 🔥

🌈 `all`

all: ${MAN0SRCS}

the one true default. builds literally everything in ${MAN0SRCS} 🫶

🌈 `all.files`

all.files:
    ${_MKTARGET_CREATE}
    find ${MANSRCDIRS} -name '*.[1-9]' -print | xargs ${TOOL_MKMAGIC} | ${TOOL_GREP} troff | ${TOOL_SED} 's/:[ ]*.*$$//' | ${TOOL_GREP} -F -v -f "${.CURDIR}/noman" | ${TOOL_GREP} -v '#' | ${TOOL_GREP} -v '/obj.' | ${TOOL_GREP} -v '/destdir.' | ${TOOL_GREP} -v '/tooldir.' > ${.TARGET}.tmp && ${MV} ${.TARGET}.tmp ${.TARGET} ; rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp

this is the big one 😤 she finds ${MANSRCDIRS} for '*.[1-9]', pipes through ${TOOL_MKMAGIC}, keeps only the troff hits, ${TOOL_SED} chops off everything after the colon with 's/:[ ]*.*$$//', then a wall of ${TOOL_GREP} exclusions:

-F -v -f "${.CURDIR}/noman" — anything listed in the noman file, begone
-v '#' — no comment lines
-v '/obj.' — no obj. paths
-v '/destdir.' — no destdir. paths
-v '/tooldir.' — no tooldir. paths

then > ${.TARGET}.tmp && ${MV} ${.TARGET}.tmp ${.TARGET} ; rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp — atomic-ish, iconic, no crumbs left behind 🧹

🌈 `man${_S}pages.files`

man${_S}pages.files: all.files
    ${_MKTARGET_CREATE}
    cat ${.ALLSRC} | ${TOOL_GREP} "${_S}" | ${TOOL_SED} 's,//]*,2 12,' | sort | ${TOOL_SED} 's/^.*    //' > ${.TARGET}.tmp && ${MV} ${.TARGET}.tmp ${.TARGET} ; rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp

takes all.files, ${TOOL_GREP}-filters for the section "${_S}", runs a ${TOOL_SED} substitution 's,//]*,2 12,', sorts it (obvi), then another ${TOOL_SED} 's/^.* //' to strip the leading bits, and again: .tmp → ${MV} → ${TARGET}, then rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp ✨

🌈 `man${_S}pages.ps`

man${_S}pages.ps: man${_S}pages.files
    ${_MKTARGET_CREATE}
    for f in `${TOOL_GREP} "${_S}" "${.CURDIR}/intros"` `cat ${.ALLSRC}` ; do if [ ! -f $${f} ]; then continue ; fi ; if ${TOOL_GREP} -q ^\.TS "${.CURDIR}/back" ; then ${_MKSHMSG_FORMAT} >&2 $${f} ; cat $${f} | ${TOOL_TBL} | ${TOOL_GROFF} -Z -msafer -man -Tps ${ROFF_PAGESIZE}; else ${_MKSHMSG_FORMAT} >&2 $${f} "(tbl)"; cat $${f} | ${TOOL_GROFF} -Z -msafer -man -Tps ${ROFF_PAGESIZE}; fi ; done > ${.TARGET}.troff.tmp && cat ${.TARGET}.troff.tmp | ${TOOL_GREP} -v '^x stop' | ${TOOL_GROPS} > ${.TARGET}.tmp && ${MV} ${.TARGET}.tmp ${.TARGET} ; rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp ${.TARGET}.troff.tmp

the drama of it all 💀 she loops over `${TOOL_GREP} "${_S}" "${.CURDIR}/intros"` plus `cat ${.ALLSRC}` — and:

if [ ! -f $${f} ], she continues, she does not have the energy
if ${TOOL_GREP} -q ^\.TS "${.CURDIR}/back" says yes, she prints ${_MKSHMSG_FORMAT} >&2 $${f} and pipes cat $${f} | ${TOOL_TBL} | ${TOOL_GROFF} -Z -msafer -man -Tps ${ROFF_PAGESIZE}
otherwise she prints ${_MKSHMSG_FORMAT} >&2 $${f} "(tbl)" and runs cat $${f} | ${TOOL_GROFF} -Z -msafer -man -Tps ${ROFF_PAGESIZE} without tbl

everything lands in ${.TARGET}.troff.tmp, then cat ${.TARGET}.troff.tmp | ${TOOL_GREP} -v '^x stop' | ${TOOL_GROPS} > ${.TARGET}.tmp (yes, those ^x stop lines get evicted), && ${MV} into place, and rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp ${.TARGET}.troff.tmp 🎀

🌈 `man${_S}pages.pdf`

man${_S}pages.pdf: man${_S}pages.ps
    ${_MKTARGET_CREATE}
    cat ${.ALLSRC} | ${TOOL_SED} ${OPTIMIZE_PDF} | ps2pdf - - > ${.TARGET}.tmp && ${MV} ${.TARGET}.tmp ${.TARGET} ; rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp

cat → ${TOOL_SED} ${OPTIMIZE_PDF} (the de-fluffing) → ps2pdf - - → .tmp → ${MV} → ${TARGET} → rm -f ${.TARGET}.tmp. and remember: needs ps2pdf or this whole target is a no 😭

🌈 `man.tgz`

man.tgz:
    tar plzvcf manpages-ps.tgz man?pages.ps
    tar plzvcf manpages-pdf.tgz man?pages.pdf

the finale 🎆 two tarballs, manpages-ps.tgz from man?pages.ps and manpages-pdf.tgz from man?pages.pdf, both with tar plzvcf. she ate.

⭐ little notes because they're in the file and we don't skip ⭐

there's a comment at the top that's literally # # Note: Needs ps2pdf to convert .ps to .pdf # — nested hashes, highkey adorable 🥺
the fluff-removal comment credits uwe@NetBSD.org by name, so shoutout uwe 🫶

👑 signing off 👑

and that's the whole vibe, bestie — she's <purple>@(#)Makefile 5.9 (Berkeley) 7/1/91</purple> at heart and <lavender>$NetBSD: Makefile,v 1.19 2024/04/05 23:05:53 christos Exp $</lavender> in her latest era, so go build your man pages, ship your tarballs, and remember: .tmpfirst,${MV}` after, always 💜✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from

nixpkgs unstable: netbsd-source 11.0
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms