Manup Lonely MAN near You

SYNOPSIS

- - - - - -

man [-acfhklw] [-C - file] [-M - path] [-m - path] [-S - subsection] [[-s] - section] name ...

DESCRIPTION

-The man utility displays the manual page entitled - name. Pages may be selected according to a specific - category (section) or machine architecture - (subsection). -

The options are as follows:

-a

Display all matching manual pages.

-C - file

Use the specified file instead of the default - configuration file. This permits users to configure their own manual - environment. See man.conf(5) for a description of the contents of this file.

-c

Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using - less(1) to paginate it. - This is done by default if the standard output is not a terminal device. -

When using -c, most terminal devices - are unable to show the markup. To print the output of - man to the terminal with markup but without - using a pager, pipe it to ul(1). To remove the markup, pipe the output to - col(1) - -b instead.

-f

A synonym for whatis(1). - It searches for name in manual page names and - displays the header lines from all matching pages. The search is case - insensitive and matches whole words only.

-h

Display only the SYNOPSIS lines of the requested manual pages. Implies - -a and -c.

-k

A synonym for apropos(1). Instead of name, an expression - can be provided using the syntax described in the - apropos(1) manual. By - default, it displays the header lines of all matching pages.

-l

A synonym for mandoc(1). - The name arguments are interpreted as filenames. No - search is done and file, path, - section, subsection, and - -w are ignored. This option implies - -a.

-M - path

Override the list of directories to search for manual pages. The supplied - path must be a colon - (‘:’) separated list of directories. - This option also overrides the environment variable - MANPATH and any directories specified in the - man.conf(5) file.

-m - path

Augment the list of directories to search for manual pages. The supplied - path must be a colon - (‘:’) separated list of directories. - These directories will be searched before those specified using the - -M option, the MANPATH - environment variable, the man.conf(5) file, or the default directories.

-S - subsection

Only show pages for the specified machine(1) architecture. subsection - is case insensitive. -

By default manual pages for all architectures are installed. - Therefore this option can be used to view pages for one architecture - whilst using another.

This option overrides the MACHINE - environment variable.

[-s] section

Only select manuals from the specified section. The - currently available sections are: -

1: General commands (tools and utilities).
2: System calls and error numbers.
3: Library functions.
3p: perl(1) programmer's - reference guide.
4: Device drivers.
5: File formats.
6: Games.
7: Miscellaneous information.
8: System maintenance and operation commands.
9: Kernel internals.

-w

List the pathnames of all matching manual pages instead of displaying any - of them. If no name is given, list the directories - that would be searched.

The options -IKOTW are also supported and - are documented in mandoc(1). The options -fkl are mutually - exclusive and override each other.

The search starts with the -m argument if - provided, then continues with the -M argument, the - MANPATH variable, the - manpath entries in the - man.conf(5) file, or with - /usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/local/man - by default. Within each of these, directories are searched in the order - provided. Within each directory, the search proceeds according to the - following list of sections: 1, 8, 6, 2, 3, 5, 7, 4, 9, 3p. The first match - found is shown.

The mandoc.db(5) database is used for looking up manual page entries. In - cases where the database is absent, outdated, or corrupt, - man falls back to looking for files called - name.section. If both a - formatted and an unformatted version of the same manual page, for example - cat1/foo.0 and man1/foo.1, - exist in the same directory, only the unformatted version is used. The - database is kept up to date with makewhatis(8), which is run by the - weekly(8) maintenance - script.

Guidelines for writing man pages can be found in - mdoc(7).

ENVIRONMENT

MACHINE: As some manual pages are intended only for specific architectures, - man searches any subdirectories, with the same - name as the current architecture, in every directory which it searches. - Machine specific areas are checked before general areas. The current - machine type may be overridden by setting the environment variable - MACHINE to the name of a specific architecture, or - with the -S option. - MACHINE is case insensitive.
MANPAGER: Any non-empty value of the environment variable - MANPAGER is used instead of the standard - pagination program, less(1). If less(1) - is used, the interactive :t command can be used to - go to the definitions of various terms, for example command line options, - command modifiers, internal commands, environment variables, function - names, preprocessor macros, errno(2) values, and some other emphasized words. Some terms may - have defining text at more than one place. In that case, the - less(1) interactive - commands t and T can be - used to move to the next and to the previous place providing information - about the term last searched for with :t. The - -O - tag[=term] option documented - in the mandoc(1) manual - opens a manual page at the definition of a specific - term rather than at the beginning.
MANPATH: Override the standard search path which is either specified in - man.conf(5) or the - default path. The format of MANPATH is a colon - (‘:’) separated list of directories. - Invalid directories are ignored. Overridden by -M, - ignored if -l is specified. -
If MANPATH begins with a colon, it is - appended to the standard path; if it ends with a colon, it is prepended - to the standard path; or if it contains two adjacent colons, the - standard path is inserted between the colons.
-
PAGER: Specifies the pagination program to use when - MANPAGER is not defined. If neither PAGER nor - MANPAGER is defined, less(1) is used.

FILES

/etc/man.conf: default man configuration file

EXIT - STATUS

The man utility exits 0 on success, - and >0 if an error occurs. See mandoc(1) for details.

EXAMPLES

Format a page for pasting extracts into an email message — - avoid printing any UTF-8 characters, reduce the width to ease quoting in - replies, and remove markup:

$ man -T ascii -O width=65 pledge |
-  col -b

Read a typeset page in a PDF viewer:

$ MANPAGER=mupdf man -T pdf
-  lpd

SEE - ALSO

apropos(1), - col(1), - mandoc(1), - ul(1), - whereis(1), - man.conf(5), - mdoc(7)

STANDARDS

The man utility is compliant with the - IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) - specification.

The flags [-aCcfhIKlMmOSsTWw], as well as - the environment variables MACHINE, - MANPAGER, and MANPATH, are - extensions to that specification.

HISTORY

A man command first appeared in - Version 2 AT&T UNIX.

The -w option first appeared in - Version 7 AT&T UNIX; - -f and -k in - /usr/usb/man in 4.0BSD; - -M in 4.3BSD; - -a in 4.3BSD-Tahoe; - -c and -m in - 4.3BSD-Reno; -h in - 4.3BSD-Net/2; -C in - NetBSD 1.0; -s and - -S in OpenBSD 2.3; and - -I, -K, - -l, -O, and - -W in OpenBSD 5.7. The - -T option first appeared in - AT&T System III UNIX and was also added - in OpenBSD 5.7.

- L - m - `m` - t - F - y -

NAME