[Pkg-javascript-devel] Bug#763040: npm: "npm help <cmd>" is broken

[Tobias Hoffmann]

Package: npm
Version: 1.4.21+ds-2
Severity: normal


npm help <cmd> is supposed to show the man page npm-<cmd>,
but it only shows the list of more-or-less matching commands
(which basically says: type "npm help <cmd>" to get more help).

AFAIK, "npm help install" looks for
  /usr/share/npm/man/*/npm-install.1
but not for
  /usr/share/npm/man/*/npm-install.1.gz
and as the former is not found by npm, npm help does not go on to
call "man npm-install" (which would find the .gz file).

According to
  http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-javascript/npm.git/tree/debian/README.source
the problem can be worked around by using appropriate symlinks,
but the suggested links are not present in the debian package.
Instead, /usr/share/npm/man itself is a symlink to
/usr/share/man, where only .gz files are found.
(Alternatively, npm could be patched to look for .gz man-pages, but this isn't currently
done, either).


-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-rc5-dirty (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages npm depends on:
ii  node-abbrev               1.0.4-2
ii  node-ansi                 0.3.0-2
ii  node-ansi-color-table     1.0.0-1
ii  node-archy                0.0.2-1
ii  node-block-stream         0.0.7-1
ii  node-fstream              0.1.24-1
ii  node-fstream-ignore       0.0.6-2
ii  node-github-url-from-git  1.1.1-1
ii  node-glob                 3.2.6-1
ii  node-graceful-fs          2.0.0-2
ii  node-gyp                  0.10.10-2
ii  node-inherits             2.0.0-1
ii  node-ini                  1.1.0-1
ii  node-lockfile             0.4.1-1
ii  node-lru-cache            2.3.1-1
ii  node-minimatch            0.2.12-1
ii  node-mkdirp               0.3.5-1
ii  node-nopt                 3.0.1-1
ii  node-npmlog               0.0.4-1
ii  node-once                 1.1.1-1
ii  node-osenv                0.0.3-1
ii  node-read                 1.0.4-1
ii  node-read-package-json    1.1.3-1
ii  node-request              2.26.1-1
ii  node-retry                0.6.0-1
ii  node-rimraf               2.2.2-2
ii  node-semver               2.1.0-2
ii  node-sha                  1.2.3-1
ii  node-slide                1.1.4-1
ii  node-tar                  0.1.18-1
ii  node-underscore           1.4.4-2
ii  node-which                1.0.5-2
ii  nodejs                    0.10.25~dfsg2-2

npm recommends no packages.

npm suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information