Reference: man
Author: Daniel Gilly & the Staff of O'Reilly & Associates
Date: 1998-08-06T21:53:47Z

#

| Chapter 2 UNIX Commands |

## man

    /usr/ucb/man [options] [[section] subjects]

Display information from the on-line reference manuals. Each `subject` is usually the name of a command from Section 1 of the on-line manuals, unless you specify an optional `section` from 1 to 8. If you don't specify a `subject`, you must supply either a keyword (for -k) or a file (for -f). No options except -M can be used with -k or -f. The MANPATH environment variable defines the directory in which man searches for information (default is /usr/share/man). PAGER defines how output is sent to the screen (default is more -s). Note: In Solaris 2.0, `section` must be preceded by -s.

### Options

-

  Pipe output through cat instead of more -s.

-a

  Show all pages matching `subject`. Solaris 2.0 only.

-d

  Debug; evaluate the man command but don't execute. Solaris 2.0 only.

-F

  Search MANPATH directories, not windex database. Solaris 2.0 only.

-f `files`

  Display a one-line summary of one or more reference `files`. Same as whatis.

-k `keywords`

  Display any header line that contains one of the specified `keywords`. Same as apropos.

-l

  Like -a, but only list the pages. Solaris 2.0 only.

-M `path`

  Search for on-line descriptions in directory `path` instead of default directory. -M overrides MANPATH.

-r

  Reformat but don't display manual page. Same as - -t. Solaris 2.0 only.

-t

  Format the manual pages with troff.

-T `mac`

  Display information using macro package `mac` instead of tmac.an (the `man` macros).

### Examples

Save documentation on the mv command (strip backspaces):

>     man mv | col -b > Move.doc

Display commands related to linking and compiling:

>     man -k link compile | more

Display a summary of all intro files:

>     man -f intro

Look up the page for nice, as well as the intro page from Section 3M:

>     man nice 3m intro		In SVR4
>     man nice -s 3m intro	In Solaris 2.0

Reference: makekey |  | Reference: mcs