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@quickshiftin
Created February 21, 2014 07:25
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Running GNU coreutils via Homebrew on your Mac? Here's a one-liner to get the manpages working!
# Short of learning how to actually configure OSX, here's a hacky way to use
# GNU manpages for programs that are GNU ones, and fallback to OSX manpages otherwise
alias man='_() { echo $1; man -M $(brew --prefix)/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnuman $1 1>/dev/null 2>&1; if [ "$?" -eq 0 ]; then man -M $(brew --prefix)/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnuman $1; else man $1; fi }; _'
@JacobDorman
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@tasmo Ahh so there is. I never use that. unalias _ fixes the issue.

@OJFord
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OJFord commented Oct 8, 2016

What's wrong with just putting /usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnuman at the front of $MANPATH?

@SystemDisc
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SystemDisc commented Jan 28, 2017

I have the same question as @OJFord. Why not just export MANPATH="/usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnuman:$MANPATH"?

@si9ma
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si9ma commented Feb 3, 2019

man section will not work, use $@ instead of $1

alias man='_() { echo $@; man -M $(brew --prefix)/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnuman $@ 1>/dev/null 2>&1;  if [ "$?" -eq 0 ]; then man -M $(brew --prefix)/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnuman $@; else man $@; fi }; _'

@ciscohack
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This man hack command now not working in macOS 12.3.1 .. when i put this in my alias file and try to type man it stuck on "ma" only.. shall we have new workaround

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