phantom non-existent command "manpath"?

[Soren A <somian at adelphia dot net>]

Hello,

I've a question on the cygwin port of `man' and it may turn out that it is 
pertaining to `man' in general everywhere.

I have come across a shell script that is part of a software package, that 
uses the command output of `manpath' to fill the variable MANPATH:

   export MANPATH=`manpath`

When I `man man' I see that the top of man's own manpage references manpath 
in a line right below the heading for `man' itself. But after that I could 
find no clear explanation further down for how `manpath' (LOWERCASE) works 
or why it wouldn't be available on all systems where `man' itself is 
installed.

Nonetheless on my Cygwin installation `manpath' is absent. Is this right?

Upstream maintainers bogus documentation warts aren't Cygwin's
responsibility (just in case anyone mistakenly infers that I am implying
such) but since cygwin is where I am using `man' in this context (and
where I am testing the aforementioned software package that is going to
break because `manpath' isn't available), I am hoping a knowledgeable
reader will come up with some insights to help me understand what's up. 

Is there a technique for replacing that one-line (above) i.e. an obvious 
kludge I could employ? Until I really understand what `manpath' does I 
can't come up with one myself.

TIA.

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