Help2man automates the creation of basic manual pages from program output.
Help2man is a software tool that automatically generates simple manual pages from program output. Its purpose is to provide software authors with an easy way to include a manual page in their distribution without having to maintain that document.
When given a program that produces reasonably standard --help and --version outputs, help2man will attempt to re-arrange that output into something resembling a manual page.
To invoke help2man, use the following format: help2man [option]... executable. Help2man supports a variety of options, including setting the description for the NAME paragraph of the manual page with -n string or --name=string. By default, this paragraph contains the manual page for program version.
Other options include specifying the section and manual name for the page with -s section/--section section and -m manual/--manual=manual respectively. The default names vary depending on the section of the page.
Help2man also allows users to include material from a file with -i file/--include=file or -I file/--opt-include=file, which is a variant for use in Makefile pattern rules. Output can be sent to a file with -o file/--output=file instead of stdout.
Users can also choose to suppress the inclusion of a SEE ALSO paragraph with -N/--no-info. Default help and version options can be passed to the executable, or alternatives can be specified with -h option/--help-option=option and -v option/--version-option=option.
Overall, help2man is a useful tool for software authors who want to include manual pages in their distribution without the hassle of maintaining them manually.
When given a program that produces reasonably standard --help and --version outputs, help2man will attempt to re-arrange that output into something resembling a manual page.
To invoke help2man, use the following format: help2man [option]... executable. Help2man supports a variety of options, including setting the description for the NAME paragraph of the manual page with -n string or --name=string. By default, this paragraph contains the manual page for program version.
Other options include specifying the section and manual name for the page with -s section/--section section and -m manual/--manual=manual respectively. The default names vary depending on the section of the page.
Help2man also allows users to include material from a file with -i file/--include=file or -I file/--opt-include=file, which is a variant for use in Makefile pattern rules. Output can be sent to a file with -o file/--output=file instead of stdout.
Users can also choose to suppress the inclusion of a SEE ALSO paragraph with -N/--no-info. Default help and version options can be passed to the executable, or alternatives can be specified with -h option/--help-option=option and -v option/--version-option=option.
Overall, help2man is a useful tool for software authors who want to include manual pages in their distribution without the hassle of maintaining them manually.
What's New
Version 1.36.4: N/A