dump linux man pages into a structured/nonstructured dataset

Question

is there a way to dump all linux man pages into a database or set of files? or do they already exist in some formats on the linux system where I can get a copy?

Answer 1

Use following command:

manpath

it will show you path of man pages

example:

user@Null-Pointer:$ manpath
/usr/local/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/share/man

If you take a look in the directory you will see all tar files..so almost all the man pages are stored in tar archive format and they are extracted on the fly when you ask for some man pages using

man some-command-

Answer 2

Man pages are already set of files. If you are interested in having them, you are better off downloading them from the original source rather than installing packages into your system and then fishing out installed files. Plus, Linux distributions are almost always running a little bit behind and have slightly outdated manual pages. There is also a good collection of up to date manual pages maintained by Michael Kerrisk (who runs man7.org), which you can download here - https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/download.html

Hope it helps.