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Install libevent man pages from sourcecode with autotools


I've installed libevent from source code (from the git repository) with autotools. I thought the command 'make install-man' would install the man pages, but nothing is available. I've also tried setting the './configuration --datadir' option without results.

How can I install libevent man pages?


Solution

  • I've installed libevent from source code (from the git repository) with autotools. I thought the command 'make install-man' would install the man pages, but nothing is available.

    In an Automake-based build system such as you are using, make install will install man pages along with everything else, and make install-man will install the man pages alone ... PROVIDED THAT there are any.

    From examination of the libevent source, it appears that libevent does not provide man pages by default, but that you can turn on their generation and installation at configure time.

    I've also tried setting the './configuration --datadir' option without results.

    How can I install libevent man pages?

    Run ./configure --help to see a summary of all the available options (I recommend doing this before building any Autotools project). I think you will see --enable-doxygen-man among the available options, and I expect that turning this on when you (re)configure will cause man pages to be generated during the build and installed during the installation. If you're sufficiently clever then you can probably work out how to build and install just those, but the easiest way forward proceeds via rebuilding the whole project.