Node.js: running "npm help term " not working since upgrade to 0.8.3

Question

Running
npm help <command>
usually displays npm's man page on <command>. And if the the command doesn't exist, npm will show a "top hits" list of related commands.
But since upgrading to 0.8.3, running it will always show the "top hits" list, even for existing commands.
After digging around I found that the problem is the man files that npm uses in /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/man are gzipped (with filenames like install.1.gz) which breaks npm since npm is expecting ungizipped filenames.
After further digging, it seems that the gzipping of npm's man pages was only added in node 0.8.2-2
So, basically just checking if anyone has this same problem (and confirming it's not a problem with upstream) before submitting it to bugs.archlinux.org

Answer 1

The man command should handle gzipped or non-zipped man pages just fine.  I'm not sure if there is an official standard, but packages are free to use gz'ed or non-zipped man pages - they both work just fine.  If it's not an official standard recommendation, though, gzipped man pages have become so common that they are almost a 'de facto' standard.  But package managers (at least pacman) do not gzip the man pages.  This is generally handled upstream or in the packages Makefile.
But, more to the point for the present issue, while man can open either format of page, if you give a full path, you must include the extension.  Example:
$pacman -Ql bash | grep man
bash /usr/share/man/
bash /usr/share/man/man1/
bash /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1.gz
bash /usr/share/man/man1/bashbug.1.gz
$ man bash #works
$ man /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1.gz #works
$ man /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1
man: /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1: No such file or directory
No manual entry for /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1
.... er ... I just installed this again and did some tinkering.  Most of what I've said is true (and perhaps someday useful) but currently irrelevant.  Npm does not use `man` at all.  It just echo's it's help information directly to the terminal.
Perhaps the syntax has changed since the last version you used, but it seems to be doing just what it is supposed to:
$ npm help
Usage: npm <command>
where <command> is one of:
... <snip> ...
npm <cmd> -h quick help on <cmd>
npm -l display full usage info
npm faq commonly asked questions
npm help <term> search for help on <term>
npm help npm involved overview
Specify configs in the ini-formatted file:
/home/jmcclure/.npmrc
or on the command line via: npm <command> --key value
Config info can be viewed via: npm help config
[email protected] /usr/lib/node_modules/npm
$ npm help cache
Top hits for "cache"
npm help cache cache:23
npm help config cache:20
npm help folders cache:7
npm help pack cache:2
npm help index cache:2
npm help changelog cache:1
(run with -l or --long to see more context)
$ npm cache -h
npm cache add <tarball file>
npm cache add <folder>
npm cache add <tarball url>
npm cache add <git url>
npm cache add <name>@<version>
npm cache ls [<path>]
npm cache clean [<pkg>[@<version>]]
Note in the first output it specifies that "npm help <term>" is only supposed to search for the term and return the top-listing list while "npm <command> -h" is the syntax to view the help information for a given command.
Last edited by Trilby (2012-07-25 14:16:31)