Mangle man pages to show just the parts you need (suitable for aliasing to "man")

mangle

#!/bin/bash

less_command='| less $less_no_init -aiF -Ps"Manual page\: $man_page (?ltline %lt?L/%L.:byte %bB?s/%s..? (END):?pB %pB\%..)"'

# Get section
if [[ $1 =~ [0-9]+ ]]
then
    section=$1
    shift
fi

# Find the longest set of args that gets a man page
man_page=("$@")
while ! command man -w $(echo "${man_page[@]}" | tr " " "-") &>/dev/null
do
    patterns+=( ${man_page[-1]} )
    unset man_page[-1]
done

# For some reason, using an array substitution in the prompt string in
# less_command isn't working, so work around that by turning it into a
# plain string
man_page="${man_page[@]}"

# Build grep command
if [[ ${patterns[@]} ]]
then
    grep_command="| grep -i -C4 --color=always -- ${patterns[@]}"
fi

command="command man $section $man_page $grep_command"

# Check screen and output sizes
tty_lines=$(tput lines)
output_lines=$(eval "$command" | wc -l)

# If output < screen size, use less with -X
[[ $output_lines -lt $tty_lines ]] && less_no_init="-X"

# Display the page
eval "$command $less_command"

mangle.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Get section
if [[ $1 =~ [0-9]+ ]]
then
    section=$1
    shift
fi

# Find the longest set of args that gets a man page
args=("$@")
while ! command man -w $(echo "${args[@]}" | tr " " "-") &>/dev/null
do
    patterns+=( ${args[-1]} )
    unset args[-1]
done

# Build grep command
if [[ ${patterns[@]} ]]
then
    grepCommand="| grep -i -C4 --color=always -- ${patterns[@]} | less -RFX"
else
    grepCommand=" | less -RFX"
fi

# Do it
eval "command man $section ${args[@]} $grepCommand"

@derimagia

You should throw this in a proper repo so people can contribute back, I can see it being useful to others. I would have liked to pull request that stuff in.

I think I will do that, thanks.

Wow, that Bash version is old! :)

In terms of the feature, I just found out about a neat less argument "less -X" that pretty much does that. It's actually my default MANPAGER - it essentially makes it so it doesn't clear/reset the screen when you man. (Try mangle less -X ;))

Yep, that's what I was referring to. I made it so mangle only does that if the output fits on the screen, otherwise it uses a normal pager that resets the terminal. I just posted the version that does that, it's up at the top above the previous version.