#!/usr/bin/env python3 """ collect_manuals.py - Gather all available man pages as a JSON dataset. NixOS compatible; relies on `manpath` and `man`. """ import json import os import subprocess import sys from pathlib import Path # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # 1. Get the man page search paths # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- def get_manpaths(): """Return a list of directories that `man` searches for pages.""" # On NixOS, `manpath` prints the effective MANPATH, including all profile # and store paths. Fall back to environment variable or hard-coded defaults. try: result = subprocess.run(["manpath", "-q"], capture_output=True, text=True, check=True) paths = result.stdout.strip().split(":") if paths and paths != [""]: return paths except (FileNotFoundError, subprocess.CalledProcessError): pass # Fallback: parse MANPATH environment variable manpath_env = os.environ.get("MANPATH") if manpath_env: return manpath_env.split(":") # Standard Linux defaults return ["/usr/share/man", "/usr/local/share/man"] # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # 2. Find all man page files # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- def find_man_files(manpaths): """ Walk each manpath directory, look inside 'man
' subdirs, and collect (topic_name, section, full_path). """ # Valid extensions: compressed and raw roff ext_list = {".gz", ".bz2", ".xz", ".Z", ".lzma"} # Also accept files without compression suffix (e.g., "man1/bash.1") entries = [] for base_dir in manpaths: base = Path(base_dir) if not base.is_dir(): continue # All man page directories are named man1, man2, man3, manX... for man_dir in base.glob("man*"): if not man_dir.is_dir(): continue # Extract section from directory name (e.g., "man1" -> "1") section = man_dir.name[3:] # strip "man" # Find all files inside (excluding symlinks that point outside) for file_path in man_dir.iterdir(): if not file_path.is_file(): continue # Resolve symlinks to avoid duplicates from different paths real_path = file_path.resolve() # Determine name by stripping the extension(s) name = file_path.name # Remove known compression extensions while True: stem, ext = os.path.splitext(name) if ext.lower() in ext_list: name = stem else: break # Remove the section suffix if present (e.g., "open.2" -> "open") # The section suffix matches the directory section, but we remove it. if name.endswith(f".{section}"): name = name[: -(len(section) + 1)] # Skip directories, etc. if not name: continue entries.append((name, section, real_path)) return entries # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # 3. Render a man page to plain text using `man -P cat` # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- def render_man(topic, section, timeout=5): """ Run `man -P cat
` and return its stdout as a string. Returns None on failure. """ cmd = ["man", "-P", "cat", section, topic] try: result = subprocess.run( cmd, capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=timeout, # Some systems still pipe through less if MANPAGER is set; # environment overrides it. env={**os.environ, "MANPAGER": "cat", "PAGER": "cat"}, ) if result.returncode != 0: # Possibly topic not found in database but file existed; skip. return None return result.stdout except Exception: return None # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # 4. Main # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- def main(): # Collect paths paths = get_manpaths() print(f"Searching in {len(paths)} man directories...", file=sys.stderr) entries = find_man_files(paths) print(f"Found {len(entries)} manual page files.", file=sys.stderr) # Remove exact duplicates (same topic + section from different paths) # Keep the first occurrence, but we still use `man` which picks the first. seen = set() unique_entries = [] for name, section, filepath in entries: key = (name, section) if key not in seen: seen.add(key) unique_entries.append((name, section)) print(f"After deduplication: {len(unique_entries)} unique manuals.", file=sys.stderr) dataset = [] # We'll write JSON Lines (one object per line) to avoid holding everything in memory. # If you prefer a single JSON array, you can collect all objects first. with open("manuals.jsonl", "w", encoding="utf-8") as fout: for idx, (name, section) in enumerate(unique_entries, 1): text = render_man(name, section) if text is None: # Could not render – skip or log continue record = { "topic": name, "section": section, "manual": text, } # Write as JSON Lines (one per line) fout.write(json.dumps(record, ensure_ascii=False) + "\n") if idx % 100 == 0: print(f"Processed {idx}/{len(unique_entries)}...", file=sys.stderr) print("Done. Output written to manuals.jsonl", file=sys.stderr) if __name__ == "__main__": main()