path: root/man.1

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.\"     @(#)man.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 1/2/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: August 21 2014 $
.Dt MAN 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm man
.Nd display manual pages
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm man
.Op Fl achw
.Op Fl C Ar file
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl m Ar path
.Op Fl S Ar subsection
.Op Fl s Ar section
.Op Ar section
.Ar name ...
.Nm man
.Fl f Ar command ...
.Nm man
.Fl k Ar keyword ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility
displays the
.Bx
manual pages entitled
.Ar name .
Pages may be selected according to
a specific category
.Pq Ar section
or
machine architecture
.Pq Ar subsection .
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a
Display all of the manual pages for a specified
.Ar section
and
.Ar name
combination.
Normally, only the first manual page found is displayed.
.It Fl C Ar file
Use the specified
.Ar file
instead of the default configuration file.
This permits users to configure their own manual environment.
See
.Xr man.conf 5
for a description of the contents of this file.
.It Fl c
Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using
.Xr more 1
to paginate it.
This is done by default if the standard output is not a terminal device.
.It Fl f Ar command
A synonym for
.Xr whatis 1 .
It looks up a given command and
gives the header line from the manual page.
.Ar command
is case insensitive.
.It Fl h
Display only the
.Dq SYNOPSIS
lines of the requested manual pages.
.It Fl k Ar keyword
A synonym for
.Xr apropos 1 .
It shows which manual pages contain instances of any of the given
keywords in their title line.
.Ar keyword
is case insensitive.
.Pp
For instance,
to list all man pages which contain
.Dq mount
in the
.Dq NAME
line of the man page:
.Pp
.Dl $ man -k mount
.Pp
Which would produce a list much like this:
.Bd -literal
amd (8) \(en automatically mount file systems
amq (8) \(en automounter query tool
domountroothooks (9) \(en run all mountroot hooks
exports (5) \(en define remote mount points for NFS mount requests
getfsstat (2) \(en get list of all mounted file systems
getmntinfo (3) \(en get information about mounted file systems
mount (8) \(en mount file systems
mount, unmount (2) \(en mount or dismount a filesystem
mount_cd9660 (8) \(en mount an ISO-9660 filesystem
mount_ext2fs (8) \(en mount an ext2fs file system
mount_ffs (8) \(en mount a Berkeley Fast File System
mount_msdos (8) \(en mount an MS-DOS file system
mount_nfs (8) \(en mount NFS file systems
mount_ntfs (8) \(en mount an NTFS file system
mount_procfs (8) \(en mount the process file system
mount_udf (8) \(en mount a UDF filesystem
mount_vnd, vnconfig (8) \(en configure vnode disks
mountd (8) \(en service remote NFS mount requests
\&...
.Ed
.It Fl M Ar path
Override the list of standard directories which
.Nm
searches for manual pages.
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of directories.
This search path may also be set using the environment variable
.Ev MANPATH .
The subdirectories to be searched, and their search order,
are specified by the
.Dq _subdir
line in the
.Nm
configuration file.
.It Fl m Ar path
Augment the list of standard directories which
.Nm
searches for manual pages.
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of directories.
These directories will be searched before the standard directories or
the directories specified using the
.Fl M
option or the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable.
The subdirectories to be searched, and their search order,
are specified by the
.Dq _subdir
line in the
.Nm
configuration file.
.It Fl S Ar subsection
Restricts the directories that
.Nm
will search to those of a specific
.Xr machine 1
architecture.
.Ar subsection
is case insensitive.
.Pp
By default manual pages for all architectures are installed.
Therefore this option can be used to view pages for one
architecture whilst using another.
.Pp
This option overrides the
.Ev MACHINE
environment variable.
.It Xo
.Op Fl s
.Ar section
.Xc
Restricts the directories that
.Nm
will search to a specific section.
The currently available sections are:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "localXXX" -offset indent -compact
.It 1
General commands
.Pq tools and utilities .
.It 2
System calls and error numbers.
.It 3
Libraries.
.It 3f
Fortran programmer's reference guide.
.It 3p
.Xr perl 1
programmer's reference guide.
.It 4
Device drivers.
.It 5
File formats.
.It 6
Games.
.It 7
Miscellaneous.
.It 8
System maintenance and operation commands.
.It 9
Kernel internals.
.It X11
An alias for X11R6.
.It X11R6
X Window System.
.It local
Pages located in
.Pa /usr/local .
.It n
Tcl/Tk commands.
.El
.Pp
The
.Nm
configuration file,
.Xr man.conf 5 ,
specifies the possible
.Ar section
values, and their search order.
Additional sections may be specified.
.It Fl w
List the pathnames of the manual pages which
.Nm
would display for the specified
.Ar section
and
.Ar name
combination.
.El
.Pp
Guidelines for
.Ox
man pages can be found in
.Xr mdoc 7 .
.Pp
If both a formatted and an unformatted version of the same manual page,
for example
.Pa cat1/foo.0
and
.Pa man1/foo.1 ,
exist in the same directory, and at least one of them is selected,
only the newer one is used.
However, if both the
.Fl a
and the
.Fl w
options are specified, both file names are printed.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Bl -tag -width MANPATHX
.It Ev MACHINE
As some manual pages are intended only for specific architectures,
.Nm
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
.Ev MACHINE
to the name of a specific architecture,
or with the
.Fl S
option.
.Ev MACHINE
is case insensitive.
.It Ev MANPAGER
Any non-empty value of the environment variable
.Ev MANPAGER
will be used instead of the standard pagination program,
.Xr more 1 .
.It Ev MANPATH
The standard search path used by
.Nm
may be overridden by specifying a path in the
.Ev MANPATH
environment
variable.
The format of the path is a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of directories.
The subdirectories to be searched, as well as their search order,
are specified by the
.Dq _subdir
line in the
.Nm
configuration file.
.It Ev PAGER
Specifies the pagination program to use when
.Ev MANPAGER
is not defined.
If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined,
.Pa /usr/bin/more Fl s
will be used.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /etc/man.conf -compact
.It Pa /etc/man.conf
default man configuration file
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std man
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr intro 1 ,
.Xr whatis 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1 ,
.Xr intro 2 ,
.Xr intro 3 ,
.Xr intro 4 ,
.Xr intro 5 ,
.Xr man.conf 5 ,
.Xr intro 6 ,
.Xr intro 7 ,
.Xr mdoc 7 ,
.Xr intro 8 ,
.Xr intro 9
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility is compliant with the
.St -p1003.1-2008
specification.
.Pp
The flags
.Op Fl aCcfhMmSsw ,
as well as the environment variables
.Ev MACHINE ,
.Ev MANPAGER ,
and
.Ev MANPATH ,
are extensions to that specification.
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command first appeared in
.At v3 .
.Pp
The
.Fl w
option first appeared in
.At v7 ;
.Fl f
and
.Fl k
in
.Bx 4 ;
.Fl M
in
.Bx 4.3 ;
.Fl a
in
.Bx 4.3 Tahoe ;
.Fl c
and
.Fl m
in
.Bx 4.3 Reno ;
.Fl h
in
.Bx 4.3 Net/2 ;
.Fl C
in
.Nx 1.0 ;
and
.Fl s
and
.Fl S
in
.Ox 2.3 .