Creating Your Own Help File System

*nix users create lots of their own utilities/scripts over time. Scripts to search for information, query a database etc etc. The danger is however that they forget what they've called their script and what it was supposed to do.

My own successful solution has been to create a simple hierarchical help system.

hhelp is just a text file which as you can see lists my help files which are also simple help files.

hhelp (master help file) lists

$ hhelp
vhelp : vi/grep utilities
thelp : tex/latex
yhelp : yoyo (toggle between two directories)
mhelp : marker help
nhelp : notes
zhelp : z-notes
chelp : cygwin help
ihelp : info help
phelp : paste help

so typing phelp at the command line would list all my scripts which manipulate the copy/paste buffer

$ phelp
cclip clean copy-paste buffer
vxp vi paste buffer
vxpp print paste buffer
vfp vi file in paste buffer
cxp cp remote paste to local paste

So my system is more an aide-memoire than a fully fledged help system, but at the moment that's all I really need, of course my scripts also have a single line description which I can list when required