Comment 6 for bug 46480

> On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 11:23:04AM +0100, Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> > > It appears that the reference to BROWSER was simply removed from
> > > environ(7) in later versions. This isn't an acceptable fix...
> >
> > Not acceptable because?
>
> The information is duplicated in several other man pages.

How is that a problem?

> Some even refer to environ(7) on the presumption that
> BROWSER would be documented there.

Which ones?

> > PS I removed it from the page on the basis that this page
> > lists common environment variables. BROWSER seems to be far
> > from common. But if you can produce examples...
>
> zgrep -r BROWSER /usr/share/man
> Even sensible-browser in debianutils uses it.

On the distribution I just checked (not Debian), grepping the
man pages produced exactly one other man page that mentions
BROWSER.

Any apps that need BROWSER should of course be documenting
its use in their own man pages -- they do not/should not
be relying on environ(7) to be documenting specific
environment variables.

Cheers,

Michael

--
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7

Want to help with man page maintenance?
Grab the latest tarball at
ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/manpages/,
read the HOWTOHELP file and grep the source
files for 'FIXME'.