man(1) output error

[parv at pair.com]

in message <alpine.BSF.2.00.1010302151370.7151 at wonkity.com>,
wrote Warren Block thusly...
>
> On Sat, 30 Oct 2010, Adam Vande More wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 10:13 PM, <parv at pair.com> wrote:
> >       I tried with "man perlfunc | less '+/y'" (also repeated the above
> >       with csh) which did not result in any error messages in zsh 4 on
> >       FreeBSD 8-STABLE (c. Sep 9 2010).
> >
> >
> > Perhaps it's not directly related to the shell since your config
> > is similar to except my stable is from Oct 4 and the error
> > happens here.
>
> Sounds right.  The initial search command for less (+/whatever) is
> not always needed; after the error appears with it, just 'man
> perlfunc | less' will give the errors.
>
> The errors appear here when 'man perlfunc | less +/y' is run on
> csh, bash, or zsh and "q" is pressed before the EOF has been
> reached:
>
>    % man perlfunc | less +/y
>    Error executing formatting or display command.
>    system command exited with status 36096
>    No manual entry for perlfunc

Yes, pressing "q" in less produces the above too here.


> The status is always 36096, or 0x8d00.  Haven't yet found a short
> man page which does this.  Interestingly, longer man pages may do
> it twice:
>
>    % man ifconfig | less +/following
>    Error executing formatting or display command.
>    system command exited with status 36096
>    Error executing formatting or display command.
>    system command exited with status 36096
>    No manual entry for ifconfig

Now this is also reproducible.


> Go to the EOF with "G" first, then press "q", and there are no
> errors.

Yep.

Thanks Warren for listing various cases.  That made me realize that
I did went to the end of two manual pages when I had tried to
reproduce the error earlier.


  - parv

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