Package: w3m
Version: 0.5.3-19
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
(This is a really trivial wishlist bug for an obscure aspect of an
obscure script. I'm not expecting to see it get into Jessie.)
w3mman(1) mentions an environment variable W3MMAN_W3M, which sounds as
if it might usefully be set to something like lynx or chromium.
However, the data passed to W3MMAN_W3M is not something any browser
other than w3m can make use of:
$ W3MMAN_W3M=echo w3mman w3mman
file:///$LIB/w3mman2html.cgi?quit=ok&man=w3mman
w3m itself somehow knows that "file:///$LIB/" needs to be expanded as
"file:///usr/lib/w3m/cgi-bin" and can therefore access the script;
other browsers understandably fail with, for instance:
Can't Access `file://localhost/$LIB/w3mman2html.cgi?quit=ok&man=w3mman'
Alert!: Unable to access document.
lynx: Can't access startfile
Of course, modern web servers and clients generally don't share w3m's
enthusiasm for this idea of executing scripts straight off the file
system, which makes the W3MMAN_W3M variable doubly pointless.
You've already seen a patch for w3mman(1) that only improves the
English; here's an independent trivial patch to warn users not to
expect too much functionality from the environment variables.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (50, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 3.17-1-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages w3m depends on:
ii libc6 2.19-13
ii libgc1c2 1:7.2d-6.4
ii libgpm2 1.20.4-6.1
ii libssl1.0.0 1.0.1j-1
ii libtinfo5 5.9+20140913-1
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.8.dfsg-2
Versions of packages w3m recommends:
ii ca-certificates 20141019
Versions of packages w3m suggests:
pn cmigemo <none>
ii man-db 2.7.0.2-3
ii mime-support 3.57
pn w3m-el <none>
ii w3m-img 0.5.3-19
-- no debconf information
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
diff -ru w3m-0.5.3.orig/scripts/w3mman/w3mman.1.in w3m-0.5.3/scripts/w3mman/w3mman.1.in
--- w3m-0.5.3.orig/scripts/w3mman/w3mman.1.in 2006-04-07 16:33:56.000000000 +0100
+++ w3m-0.5.3/scripts/w3mman/w3mman.1.in 2014-11-25 20:02:27.955227135 +0000
@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@
Specify a
.I file.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
+Two variables are available for debugging.
.TP
.B W3MMAN_W3M
If W3MMAN_W3M is set, its value is used instead of @W3M@.
