What is the use of man directive in package.json file?

Question

I am learning to npm/node and i found the field man which says that:

Specify either a single file or an array of filenames to put in place for the man program to find.

Reference Link.

What is man program?

Can anyone explain in simple and easy words ?

So it points the location to the file(s) that is the manual for this package ? — , Sep 13 '18 at 09:28
Yes, `man` program will get the file and use it as a manual to the application — LEQADA, Sep 13 '18 at 09:35
@LEQADA That's what you do when you need to RTM with no Internets. — Estus Flask, Sep 13 '18 at 09:43
It's specific to CLI packages, e.g.`man npm `. That's how Node embraces *nix. Node binaries aren't different than any other script executables (python, shell), and they behave like ones. `man` field guarantees that respective `man` documentation is installed automatically on package installation. — Estus Flask, Sep 13 '18 at 10:54

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 13 '18 at 09:36

2

man is the standard UNIX command line tool for reading software manuals. man field is specific to *nix and remains unused on Windows, at least without additional measures.

It's expected that man field contains relative path to man formatted page.

edited Sep 13 '18 at 09:36

Estus Flask

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answered Sep 13 '18 at 09:29

Quentin

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '18 at 09:38

man is a CLI (an interface on Linux terminal) to the on-line reference manuals, aka man-pages. The man-pages project is created for documenting user manual that is by default built into most Linux distributions, versions and most other Unix-like operating systems during installation.

What is the use of man directive in package.json file?

2 Answers2