stdman is a tool that parses archived HTML files from cppreference and generates groff-formatted manual pages for Unix-based systems. The goal is to provide excellent formatting for easy readability. stdman has been tested on Linux and OS X.

There's no need to compile stdman if you just want to install the man pages. Instead, just run:

./configure
make install # as a user with appropriate permissions to install

If you need to pass options to configure, you can do so. See ./configure --help for more updated information.

If you're getting 'no manual entry for std::foo' or you're seeing the libstdc++ man pages (characterized by a huge list of typedefs when you run man std::string), see the following. By default, stdman will install to /usr/local; on some systems, the manpath does not look there first. To fix this, you have two options:

• Install to /usr/share:

./configure --prefix=/usr # will replace existing libstdc++ pages
make install

• Manage your MANPATH in your ~/.bashrc (or similar):

export MANPATH=/usr/local/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/man

You either need to set your pager up to colorize man pages, or you need to install a pager to do this for you. less will not do this by default, but it's easy enough to add. most will do this by default, but it doesn't ship with vim-like navigation.

To configure less:

# Colors
default=$(tput sgr0)
red=$(tput setaf 1)
green=$(tput setaf 2)
purple=$(tput setaf 5)
orange=$(tput setaf 9)

# Less colors for man pages
export PAGER=less
# Begin blinking
export LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$red
# Begin bold
export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$orange
# End mode
export LESS_TERMCAP_me=$default
# End standout-mode
export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$default
# Begin standout-mode - info box
export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$purple
# End underline
export LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$default
# Begin underline
export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$green

To install most:
Arch: pacman -S most
Ubuntu: apt-get install most

export MANPAGER=most # in ~/.bashrc or similar

Should you want to build the source to make modifications and/or generate your own man pages, simply:

make generate # will build stdman and generate man pages

NOTE: make generate expects sources will be in the ./reference/en/cpp directory by default. See ./configure --help to modify this.

• C++11 (recommended GCC 4.8 or clang 3.4 or greater)
• elinks (recommended 0.12pre6 or greater)
• gzip (recommended 1.3.12 or greater)

NOTE: Generation not tested on Windows/cygwin.