man should support retrieval of remotely available manpages via wget/curl

[Dustin Kirkland ]

The Ubuntu Manpage Repository provides gzip'd manpages at:
 * http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages.gz/

The 'man' system tool should be enhanced to support a mode where manpages which are not locally available on the system are remotely retrieved using wget or curl.

A prototype of this functionality is available in lp:ubuntu-manpage-repository as bin/dman, which is a simple, wrapper shell script that remotely retrieves the requested manpage using wget, writing the output to a tempfile and pointing man -l at it. This is clearly inadequate for a number of reasons, yet it does prove the concept.

:-Dustin

[Dave Walker (davewalker)]

Hi Dustin,

As ever, a superb idea. I would certainly use this feature. I've looked at the bzr repo for this and it looks like you've put some significant work towards this - if you intend to implement this past a proof of concept, would it be worth assigning the bug to yourself?

[Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland)]

Hey Dave,

I plan on working on this as soon as Intrepid is out of the door, and as time permits.

I've discussed it a little bit with Colin, and he has some ideas as to the implementation.

Also, several people have pinged me on IRC about working on this... I would be happy to see a volunteer run with this one ;-)

:-Dustin