INSTALL-DOCS(8)

💖 INSTALL-DOCS — the Debian online-docs manager, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, welcome to install-docs, section 8 of the Debian manual. She's the girl who keeps all your online Debian documentation in check, and yes, she's that girl. Let's get into it. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

install-docs — manage online Debian documentation 💅

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

install-docs [options] -i,--install | -r,--remove | -c,--check file [ file ... ]

install-docs [options] -I,--install-all | -C,--install-changed | -R,--remove-all

install-docs [options] -s,--status docid [ docid ... ]

install-docs [options] --dump-db dbname

install-docs -h,--help | -V,--version

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So install-docs is the tool that lets Debian package maintainers register their documentation with all the various documentation systems out there. It's giving "herding cats, but glamorous". ✨

Right now she supports these browsers: dhelp, dwww, dochelp, and doc-central. All of them, babes. 🫶

This manual page is just a quick synopsis of how to use install-docs — literally the trailer, not the whole movie. The full documentation lives in the documentation (very meta of her 💀), and it includes a whole description of the control file syntax and grammar. So if you need the deep lore, go read that. iykyk.

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💜 OPTIONS 💜

• -v, --verbose — operate verbosely. she will tell you everything. no holding back. 🗣️
• -d, --debug — print some debugging information. detective mode activated 🔍
• --no-update-menus — inhibits running dwww-build-menu(8) and dhelp_parse(8). like, don't touch the menus, bestie. ✋
• --rootdir dir — set the root directory to dir instead of /. Useful and valid only with the --check action. (yes, only. she's picky and that's her right 💅)

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👑 ACTIONS 👑

Below is the list of possible actions install-docs could handle. And listen — there can be only one action option passed to install-docs, and on top of that, the action with its arguments must be the last option passed. One action, last, periodt. 💀

Every file argument should be the full path for the doc-base control file — that's like /usr/share/doc-base/some_file or /etc/doc-base/documents/some_file. And every docid should be the document identifier. (Document identifiers are set in the Document field of the control file, and usually correspond to the package name. slay.) 🌟

And here's a cute trick: if file or docid equals - (the minus sign), the list of arguments gets read from standard input — each file name or document id on a separate line. chef's kiss 👩‍🍳💋

• -i file [file ...], --install file [file ...] — install the documentation described by the control file file. 🎀
• -r file [file ...], --remove file [file ...] — remove the documentation identified by the control file file. bye babe 👋
• -c file [file ...], --check file [file ...] — check the control file file and display the number of possible problems found. Use it with --verbose to get the actual locations of errors and warnings (that's the good stuff, fr fr). And if --rootdir was also given, its argument will be prepended to names of the files given if the Files and Index fields of the file. 🔍
• -R, --remove-all — de-register all registered documents. like, all of them. the whole roster. 😭
• -I, --install-all — (re)register all documents from /usr/share/doc-base and /etc/doc-base/documents. 🔥
• -C, --install-changed — compare contents of /usr/share/doc-base and /etc/doc-base/documents directories with the registered documents database, then de-register any files that are missing and (re)register only changed or new files. she's efficient, she's observant, she's the moment. ✨
• -s docid [docid ...], --status docid [docid ...] — display the status of the document identifier docid. 📋
• -L docid [docid ...], --listfiles docid [docid ...] — deprecated option. does nothing. 💀 literally nothing. a ghost. 👻
• --dump-db dbname — dumps contents of internal databases, for debugging purposes. dbname can be either files.db or status.db. 🗄️
• -h, --help — show a short help message. 🫶
• -V, --version — display version information. ⭐

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🌈 COMPATIBILITY ISSUES 🌈

The following features were added in version 0.8.4 — so please, please, make sure to add proper Conflicts or Depends lines if you'd like to use them in your package's scripts. (do it. do it for her. 🙈)

• support for passing more than one argument to the -i and -r actions,
• reading arguments from the standard input,
• -I, --install-all, -R, ---remove-all, -c, --check actions,
• -d, --debug, -h, --help options.

And the -C, --install-changed, --dump-db, -V, --version options were added in 0.8.12. newer era, new features 💅

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /usr/share/doc-base/ — the location of doc-base control files provided by various packages. 📦
• /etc/doc-base/documents/ — the location of doc-base control files provided by the local administrator. 🧑‍💻
• /var/lib/doc-base/info/documents/ — the location of registered control files. 🗂️
• /var/lib/doc-base/info/status.db — statuses of registered documents. 📊
• /var/lib/doc-base/info/files.db — timestamps and documents ids of registered doc-base files. ⏰

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💀 BUGS 💀

See <http://bugs.debian.org/doc-base>. go file a report, bestie, they're listening 🫶

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🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

dhelp(1), doccentral(1), dochelp(1), dwww(7), Debian doc-base Manual /usr/share/doc/doc-base/doc-base.html/index.html

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

This program was originally written by Christian Schwarz <schwarz@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system, and the next maintainer was Adam Di Carlo <aph@debian.org>. Robert Luberda <robert@debian.org> is currently maintaining and extending it. three icons, one legacy 👑

This software was meant to be for the benefit of the entire Debian user and developer community. 💖 If you are interested in being involved with this software, please join the mailing list <debian-doc@lists.debian.org>. come hang out, we'd love to have you!! 🌸

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🎀 doc-base v0.11.2build1, dated 01 December 2025 — this was INSTALL-DOCS(8), and she ate. periodt. 💅✨