path: root/man.1

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.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2014-2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
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.\"     @(#)man.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 1/2/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate$
.Dt MAN 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm man
.Nd display manual pages
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm man
.Op Fl acfhklw
.Op Fl C Ar file
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl m Ar path
.Op Fl S Ar subsection
.Op Oo Fl s Oc Ar section
.Ar name ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility
displays the
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 matching manual pages.
Normally, only the first 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.
.Pp
When using
.Fl c ,
most terminal devices are unable to show the markup.
To print the output of
.Nm
to the terminal with markup but without using a pager, pipe it to
.Xr ul 1 .
To remove the markup, pipe the output to
.Xr col 1
.Fl b
instead.
.It Fl f
A synonym for
.Xr whatis 1 .
It searches for
.Ar name
in manual page names and displays the header lines from all matching pages.
The search is case insensitive and matches whole words only.
.It Fl h
Display only the SYNOPSIS lines of the requested manual pages.
Implies
.Fl a
and
.Fl c .
.It Fl k
A synonym for
.Xr apropos 1 .
Instead of
.Ar name ,
an expression can be provided using the syntax described in the
.Xr apropos 1
manual.
By default, it displays the header lines of all matching pages.
.It Fl l
A synonym for
.Xr mandoc 1
.Fl a .
The
.Ar name
arguments are interpreted as filenames.
No search is done and
.Ar file ,
.Ar path ,
.Ar section ,
.Ar subsection ,
and
.Fl w
are ignored.
.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 .
.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.
.It Fl S Ar subsection
Only show pages for the specified
.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 Oo Fl s Oc Ar section
Only select manuals from the specified
.Ar 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
Library functions.
.It 3p
.Xr perl 1
programmer's reference guide.
.It 4
Device drivers.
.It 5
File formats.
.It 6
Games.
.It 7
Miscellaneous information.
.It 8
System maintenance and operation commands.
.It 9
Kernel internals.
.El
.Pp
If not specified and a match is found in more than one section,
the first match is selected from the following list:
1, 8, 6, 2, 3, 5, 7, 4, 9, 3p.
.It Fl w
List the pathnames of all matching manual pages instead of displaying
any of them.
.El
.Pp
The options
.Fl IKOTW
are also supported and are documented in
.Xr mandoc 1 .
The options
.Fl fkl
are mutually exclusive and override each other.
.Pp
Guidelines for writing
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, only the unformatted version is used.
.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
is used instead of the standard pagination program,
.Xr more 1 .
If
.Xr less 1
is used, the interactive
.Ic :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,
.Xr errno 2
values, and some other emphasized words.
Some terms may have defining text at more than one place.
In that case, the
.Xr less 1
interactive commands
.Ic t
and
.Ic T
can be used to move to the next and to the previous place providing
information about the term last searched for with
.Ic :t .
.It Ev MANPATH
The standard search path used by
.Nm
may be changed by specifying a path in the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable.
The format of the path is a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of directories.
Invalid paths are ignored.
Overridden by
.Fl M ,
ignored if
.Fl l
is specified.
.Pp
If
.Ev MANPATH
begins with a colon, it is appended to the default list;
if it ends with a colon, it is prepended to the default list;
or if it contains two adjacent colons,
the standard search path is inserted between the colons.
If none of these conditions are met, it overrides the
standard search path.
.It Ev PAGER
Specifies the pagination program to use when
.Ev MANPAGER
is not defined.
If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined,
.Xr more 1
.Fl s
is used.
Only used if
.Fl a
or
.Fl l
is specified.
.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
See
.Xr mandoc 1
for details.
.Sh EXAMPLES
Format a page for pasting extracts into an email message \(em
avoid printing any UTF-8 characters, reduce the width to ease
quoting in replies, and remove markup:
.Pp
.Dl $ man -T ascii -O width=65 pledge | col -b
.Pp
Read a typeset page in a PDF viewer:
.Pp
.Dl $ MANPAGER=mupdf man -T pdf lpd
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr col 1 ,
.Xr mandoc 1 ,
.Xr ul 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1 ,
.Xr man.conf 5 ,
.Xr mdoc 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility is compliant with the
.St -p1003.1-2008
specification.
.Pp
The flags
.Op Fl aCcfhIKlMmOSsTWw ,
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 ;
.Fl s
and
.Fl S
in
.Ox 2.3 ;
and
.Fl I ,
.Fl K ,
.Fl l ,
.Fl O ,
and
.Fl W
in
.Ox 5.7 .
The
.Fl T
option first appeared in
.At III
and was also added in
.Ox 5.7 .