Man(ual pages in Unix)
| Depends on | Libraries • Shell |
|---|
Man is the default Unix manual page reader application. It allows the user to access the built in documentation for the software installed on the computer.
Usage: man [SECTION] PAGES...
To quote the manual page of the man program:
man is the 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.
Some interesting/useful man pages to check are, hier, ascii, and suffixes.
The manuals can be a very useful source of information but they are rather uncompromising: you usually need to know what you are looking for first, and then they will remind you of the precise syntax. They are not so useful when starting out so don’t worry if they look rather cryptic.
Sections
Some pages (keywords) are used for multiple purposes, depending on context. These are identified by section. Try (e.g.) man -a read to see (successively) the various interpretations of “read”. If you want a specific interpretation you can use (again, e.g.) man 2 read.
| Section | Type |
|---|---|
| 1 | Executable programs or shell commands |
| 2 | System calls (functions provided by the kernel) |
| 3 | Library calls (functions within program libraries) |
| 4 | Special files (usually found in /dev) |
| 5 | File formats and conventions e.g. /etc/passwd |
| 6 | Games |
| 7 | Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions) |
| 8 | System administration commands (usually only for root) |
| 9 | Kernel routines [Non standard] |
Hints
- Running
man manwill have man present its own manpage - Don’t know the command to search for?
Try the apropos option withman -k<keyword>. - Man on Wikipedia
