Can't read man pages

[Mmshukla21]

when I enter man man I get this error

[ms@manjaro ~]$ man man sh: line 1: bat: command not found man: command exited with status 127: sed -e '/^[[:space:]]*$/{ N; /^[[:space:]]*\n[[:space:]]*$/D; }' | LESS=-ix8RmPm Manual page man(1) ?ltline %lt?L/%L.:byte %bB?s/%s..?e (END):?pB %pB\%.. (press h for help or q to quit)$PM Manual page man(1) ?ltline %lt?L/%L.:byte %bB?s/%s..?e (END):?pB %pB\%.. (press h for help or q to quit)$ MAN_PN=man(1) sh -c col -bx | bat -l man -p

how can I fix this?

[kainonergon]

Hi. Try to figure out what happened to the man command. Run from terminal:
which man
and
file /usr/bin/man
and see what you get.

[Mmshukla21]

which man
output
/usr/bin/man

file /usr/bin/man
output
➜ file /usr/bin/man /usr/bin/man: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=53450264ac0800764530b5fbfd96896ab1a66e3b, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, stripped

[kainonergon]

That seems OK. Maybe you should check default pager for man:
which less
and
file /usr/bin/less

[Mmshukla21]

➜ file /usr/bin/less /usr/bin/less: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=a95fadef9e4175a99b8d75739af53c4c97afb948, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, stripped

[kainonergon]

@Mmshukla21

sed -e ‘/^[[:space:]]$/{ N; /^[[:space:]]\n[[:space:]]*$/D; }’ | LESS=-ix8RmPm

Do you have any idea about what can that be? Have you done something with sed recently?

[Mmshukla21]

@kainonergon

which less

/usr/bin/less

[Mmshukla21]

@kainonergon

Do you have any idea about what can that be? Have you done something with sed recently?

Nah. I’m on a pretty new installation of manjaro xfce but I have installed someone else’s dwm build

one more thing. I’m using st and i get no errors when I use xfce4-terminal

[kainonergon]

@Mmshukla21

I have installed someone else’s dwm build

I can only guess that is the cause of the problem. I’m out of ideas how to find what in particular is broken.

EDIT.

@Mmshukla21

I’m using st and i get no errors when I use xfce4-terminal

Hm. In that case the problem is not with man, but with st.

EDIT 2. I’ve edited the title to indicate that.

[Mmshukla21]

@kainonergon

Hm. In that case the problem is not with man, but with st.

i restarted the xfce4-terminal and have started getting the same sed error when I enter the man command. no matter which terminal i use i get the same error

[Strit]

Try re-installing the software with:

sudo pacman -S man-db

[Mmshukla21]

same error. already tried reinstalling it.
EDIT: I fixed the error by deleting a line from my fish config.
set -x MANPAGER "sh -c 'col -bx | bat -l man -p'"

[Strit]

Did you set it there?

[Mmshukla21]

if i had set it there then I wouldn’t have showed up here asking for help.
(using someone else’s dotfiles)

[Strit]

@Mmshukla21

(using someone else’s dotfiles)

Well, it’s a user change at any rate. My question was related to if it’s how it’s provided by the source or a customization. Answer was costumization. Thanks.

[kainonergon]

@Mmshukla21

set -x MANPAGER “sh -c ‘col -bx | bat -l man -p’”

@Mmshukla21

sh: line 1: bat: command not found

If you want to fix the error and use that particular customization, you should probably install bat