man command

Description:

• System’s manual pager.
• Each page argument given to man is normally the name of a program, utility or function.
• The manual page associated with each of these arguments is then found and displayed.
• A section, if provided, will direct man to look only in that section of the manual.
• The default action is to search in all of the available sections following a pre-defined order (see DEFAULTS), and to show only the first page found, even if page exists in several sections.

Synopsis

• man
  • [man options]
  • [[section] page ...]
  • ...
• man

  • -k

  • [apropos options]
  • regexp
  • ...
• man
  • -K
  • [man options]
  • [section]
  • term
  • ...
• man
  • -f|--whatis
    • -f, —whatis
    • Equivalent to whatis.
    • Display a short description from the manual page, if available. See whatis(1) for details.
  • [whatis options]
  • page
  • ...
• man
  • -l
  • [man options]
  • file
  • ...
• man
  • -w|-W
  • [man options]
  • page
  • ...

Sections

1. Executable programs or shell command
2. System calls
3. special files
4. file formats and conventions
5. Games
7. System administration commands
8. Kernel routines

Built-in commands:

• run man builtins

How to read?

• Conventional section names include:

  • NAME
  • SYNOPSIS
  • CONFIGURATION
  • DESCRIPTION
  • OPTIONS
  • EXIT STATUS
  • RETURN VALUE
  • ERRORS
  • ENVIRONMENT
  • FILES
  • VERSIONS
  • CONFORMING TO
  • NOTES
  • BUGS
  • EXAMPLE
  • AUTHORS
  • SEE ALSO