🚀 go-pugleaf

When looking up documentation on words in a text file, I use the
following function which reads the word to be documented from the
minibuffer:

(defun get-man (current-word)
  "Look up documentation"
  (interactive "s Enter word to man: ")
  (shell-command (concat "man " current-word))
)

For clarity, I've substituted "man" in place of the name of the local
help script that I use.


Typing the word into the minibuffer is proving cumbersome and I would
like to find a way to make the function look up the documentation for
the word that the cursor is currently on.  I will also be checking the
case of the current-word and issue a shell-command "man" for the all
lower-case solution and "help" for the any upper-case letter solution

I imagine the definition would look something like:

(defun get-man-on-current-word (current-word)
  "Look up documentation on current word"
  (interactive)
  (somehow-read current-word)
  (if (equal current-word (downcase current-word))
      (shell-command (concat "man  " current-word)
      (shell-command (concat "help " current-word)       
  )
)


The bit I don't know is how to somehow-read the current-word from the
text without hand-typing it in through the minibuffer.  Can anyone
offer me some assistance with this?


                                     Lawrence Buja
                                     southern@ncar.ucar.edu