cmake: Generate man pages at install time #31764

1. 
   hebasto commented at 12:33 PM on January 30, 2025: member

   This PR enables the man pages to be generated on the fly during installation.

   As the GNU help2man tool is required to generate man pages, the INSTALL_MAN build option is disabled by default.

   Addresses this comment:https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/809d7e763cc9bdfff3288860a1c530460c76ffff/src/CMakeLists.txt#L456

   Fixes #31762.

2. cmake: Disable `INSTALL_MAN` by default

   In subsequent commits, manpages will be generated on the fly, which
   requires the `help2man` tool.

   c089b990cf
3. cmake: Generate man pages at install time 8c8c27bf8b
4. hebasto added the label Build system on Jan 30, 2025
5. hebasto added this to the milestone 29.0 on Jan 30, 2025
6. 
   DrahtBot commented at 12:33 PM on January 30, 2025: contributor

   <!--e57a25ab6845829454e8d69fc972939a-->

   The following sections might be updated with supplementary metadata relevant to reviewers and maintainers.

   <!--006a51241073e994b41acfe9ec718e94-->

   Code Coverage & Benchmarks

   For details see: https://corecheck.dev/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls/31764.

   <!--021abf342d371248e50ceaed478a90ca-->

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7. 
   hebasto commented at 12:38 PM on January 30, 2025: member

   cc @theuni, as the author of the TODO comment.

8. in contrib/guix/manifest.scm:549 in 8c8c27bf8b

    545 | @@ -545,6 +546,7 @@ inspecting signatures in Mach-O binaries.")
    546 |          gcc-toolchain-12
    547 |          cmake-minimal
    548 |          gnu-make
    549 | +        help2man
   

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   fanquake commented at 12:40 PM on January 30, 2025:

   How does this change the guix dep graph?

9. in src/CMakeLists.txt:457 in 8c8c27bf8b

    452 | @@ -453,9 +453,9 @@ install(TARGETS ${installable_targets}
    453 |  unset(installable_targets)
    454 |  
    455 |  if(INSTALL_MAN)
    456 | -  # TODO: these stubs are no longer needed. man pages should be generated at install time.
    457 | -  install(DIRECTORY ../doc/man/
    458 | +  install(CODE "execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E make_directory ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/doc/man)")
    459 | +  install(CODE "execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E env BUILDDIR=${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR} MANDIR=${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/doc/man ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/contrib/devtools/gen-manpages.py --skip-missing-binaries)")
   

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   fanquake commented at 12:43 PM on January 30, 2025:

   --skip-missing-binaries

   I don't think we should be hardcoding a flag to ignore/skip errors into a script that you're making a requirement for release builds.

10. hebasto marked this as a draft on Jan 30, 2025
11. 
    sedited commented at 12:53 PM on January 30, 2025: contributor

    Do the release process docs need any changes from this?

12. hebasto closed this on Jan 30, 2025

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13. 
    hebasto commented at 1:15 PM on January 30, 2025: member

    This approach is not applicable for general cross-compilation scenarios :man_facepalming:

14. 
    fanquake commented at 1:38 PM on January 30, 2025: member

    One other side-effect of this change would be that someone cloning a tag would no-longer get the manpages. Maybe this doesn't matter, but would be good to mention.

15. bitcoin locked this on Jan 30, 2026

Milestone
29.0