What does %L do for /etc/MANPATH entries

[Jack C. Mahaffey]

I'm looking at writing a script to update /etc/MANPATH to include all directories that have man pages. Looking at the current contents of /etc/MANPATH I see the key combination %L used frequently. e.g. "/usr/share/man/%L". There's also another entry "/usr/share/man". executing ll on /usr/share/man/%L returns nothing. What is the significance of %L?

Thanks...

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Jack,

Here's a hint, at least - from "man man":

"The %L, %l, %t, and %c specifiers can be used as path
components to cause locale-specific directories to be searched. See
environ(5) for a complete description of MANPATH."

And, from "man 5 environ":

"Field descriptors consist of a % followed by a single
character. Field descriptors and their substitution
values are:

%N The value of the name parameter passed to
catopen(3C).
%L The value of LC_MESSAGES.
%l The language element from LC_MESSAGES.
%t The territory element from LC_MESSAGES.
%c The codeset element from LC_MESSAGES.
%% Replaced by a single %.


Pete

[Jack C. Mahaffey]

Pete, thanks for the pointers...