Manpage interpreter

[Joshua Tinnin]

On Thursday 23 December 2004 07:40 pm, "Sally Hines" 
<shines at smaller.net> wrote:
> I want to thank everyone for offering me good information on
> automating the ports update. My real question, though, is how to read
> and understand manpages. Where is the interpreter? I know I am not
> the only noob to ever have this problem? I can solve my own problems
> much better if I can interpret the instructions.

I think it would help if you gave a specific example. I don't think 
there is any such thing as an interpreter, per se, but if there is 
something confusing about a manpage, you can ask. I realize you said 
the questions list was intimidating, but if you are very specific about 
what you don't understand, you can usually get an answer. It's happened 
to me before where someone has told me to read the manpage for a 
particular command or file, and I still didn't understand it, but it 
helps if you point out what you don't understand about it, otherwise 
it's sometimes difficult to answer. There are also ways to 
problem-solve and find the answer even when you are given confusing 
instructions, but it would help if you gave me a specific example of 
something you didn't understand to show you.

- jt