POLICYMAKER(1)

🎀 NAME 🎀

okay so bestie, pull up a chair, because we're talking about policymaker — the little user command (yes, that's POLICYMAKER(1), section 1, User Commands, we love a section 1 girlie 💅). And what does it do? Per the page itself, and I quote:

• policymaker — Runs policymaker utility

That's it. That's the whole name line. It runs the policymaker utility. Iconic, honestly. No notes. ✨

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so this is where it gets a little unhinged, and I need you to stay with me, because I'm keeping every single character of it. 🫶

The page opens with this line, verbatim:

--version-string=v1045 is not a valid option policymaker

And then it drops this usage string:

[-halg hash algorithm (sha1 sha256 sha384) (default sha256) [-nz do not extend starting with zeros, just hash the last line] -if input policy statements in hex ascii [-of] output file - policy hash in binary [-pr] stdout - policy hash in hex ascii

Then — and I'm not joking — it says this:

--version is not a valid option policymaker

And then it prints the exact same usage string again:

[-halg hash algorithm (sha1 sha256 sha384) (default sha256) [-nz do not extend starting with zeros, just hash the last line] -if input policy statements in hex ascii [-of] output file - policy hash in binary [-pr] stdout - policy hash in hex ascii

Yeah. Twice. The man page really said "one time wasn't enough, bestie" and hit copy-paste. I'm not fixing it, I'm not merging it, I'm not deleting it — both copies live here. That's the vibe. 💀

Now let's break down what's actually inside that usage line, flag by flag, because the facts are sacred even when the formatting is a mess:

• -halg — picks the hash algorithm. The valid values are sha1, sha256, and sha384. The default is sha256. 💖
• -nz — do not extend starting with zeros, just hash the last line. That's the flag's whole personality.
• -if — input policy statements in hex ascii.
• -of — output file — policy hash in binary. (The bracket situation around this one in the original is [-of], and I am reporting that faithfully. 🙈)
• -pr — stdout — policy hash in hex ascii.

And the --version-string=v1045 and --version bits up there? Those are the not-a-valid-option lines, kept exactly as written. No cap, that's literally what the page says. I'm not going to guess at why, because guessing would be making stuff up, and we don't do that here. 🧚

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

The full documentation for policymaker is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and policymaker programs are properly installed at your site, this command:

info policymaker

should give you access to the complete manual. Go get that deep lore, queen. 👑

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mwah 💋 that's the whole page, and just so we're square — this beauty is from the policymaker source, dated July 2017, and yeah, it's POLICYMAKER(1) all day. Stan a manual page that shows up in section 1 and refuses to elaborate. 🎀✨🦋