# phpman > man > catman(8)

[CATMAN(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/CATMAN/8/markdown)                                Manual pager utils                                [CATMAN(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/CATMAN/8/markdown)



## NAME
       catman - create or update the pre-formatted manual pages

## SYNOPSIS
       **catman** [**-d?V**] [**-M** _path_] [**-C** _file_] [_section_] ...

## DESCRIPTION
       **catman**  is used to create an up to date set of pre-formatted manual pages known as cat pages.
       Cat pages are generally much faster to display than the original manual  pages,  but  require
       extra  storage  space.  The decision to support cat pages is that of the local administrator,
       who must provide suitable directories to contain them.

       The options available to **catman** are the manual page hierarchies and sections  to  pre-format.
       The default hierarchies are those specified as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration
       file, and the default sections are either the colon-delimited  contents  of  the  environment
       variable  $**MANSECT** or the standard set compiled into **man** if $**MANSECT** is undefined.  Supplying
       **catman** with a set of whitespace-delimited section names will override both of the above.

       **catman** makes use of the **index** database cache associated  with  each  hierarchy  to  determine
       which files need to be formatted.

## OPTIONS
### -d --debug
              Print debugging information.

### -M --manpath=
              Specify  an  alternate colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path.  By default,
              this is all paths indicated as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration file.

### -C --config-file=
              Use this user configuration file rather than the default of _~/.manpath_.

       **-?**, **--help**
              Print a help message and exit.

### --usage
              Print a short usage message and exit.

### -V --version
              Display version information.

## ENVIRONMENT
       **MANSECT**
              If $**MANSECT** is set, its value is a colon-delimited list of sections and it is used  to
              determine  which manual sections to search and in what order.  The default is "1 n l 8
              3 0 2 3posix 3pm 3perl 3am 5 4 9 6 7", unless overridden by the **SECTION**  directive  in
              _/etc/manpath.config_.

       **MANPATH**
              If  $**MANPATH** is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delimited manual page hier‐
              archy search path to use.

              See the **SEARCH** **PATH** section of [**manpath**(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/manpath/5/markdown) for the default behaviour and details of how
              this environment variable is handled.

## FILES
       _/etc/manpath.config_
              man-db configuration file.

       _/usr/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)_
              A traditional global _index_ database cache.

       _/var/catman/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)_
              An alternate or FSSTND compliant global _index_ database cache.

## SEE ALSO
       [**man**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/1/markdown), [**manpath**(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/manpath/5/markdown), [**mandb**(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mandb/8/markdown)

## AUTHOR
       Wilf. (<G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk>).
       Fabrizio Polacco (<fpolacco@debian.org>).
       Colin Watson (<cjwatson@debian.org>).

## BUGS
       <https://gitlab.com/cjwatson/man-db/-/issues>
       <https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db>



2.10.2                                       2022-03-17                                    [CATMAN(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/CATMAN/8/markdown)