path: root/man.1

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.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015 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 I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
.Op Fl K Ar encoding
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl m Ar path
.Op Fl O Ar option Ns = Ns Ar value
.Op Fl S Ar subsection
.Op Fl s Ar section
.Op Fl T Ar output
.Op Fl W Ar level
.Op 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 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
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.
This overrides any earlier
.Fl k
and
.Fl l
options.
.It Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
Override the default operating system
.Ar name
for the
.Xr mdoc 7
.Ic \&Os
and for the
.Xr man 7
.Ic \&TH
macro.
.It Fl h
Display only the SYNOPSIS lines of the requested manual pages.
Implies
.Fl a
and
.Fl c .
.It Fl K Ar encoding
Specify the input encoding.
The supported
.Ar encoding
arguments are
.Cm us-ascii ,
.Cm iso-8859-1 ,
and
.Cm utf-8 .
By default, the encoding is automatically detected as described in the
.Xr mandoc 1
manual.
.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.
This overrides any earlier
.Fl f
and
.Fl l
options.
.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 ,
and
.Ar subsection
are ignored.
This overrides any earlier
.Fl f ,
.Fl k ,
and
.Fl w
options.
.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 O Ar option Ns = Ns Ar value
Comma-separated output options.
For each output format, the available options are described in the
.Xr mandoc 1
manual.
.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 T Ar output
Select the output format.
The default is
.Cm locale .
The other output modes
.Cm ascii ,
.Cm html ,
.Cm lint ,
.Cm man ,
.Cm pdf ,
.Cm ps ,
.Cm tree ,
and
.Cm utf8
are described in the
.Xr mandoc 1
manual.
.It Fl W Ar level
Specify the minimum message
.Ar level
to be reported on the standard error output and to affect the exit status.
The
.Ar level
can be
.Cm warning ,
.Cm error ,
or
.Cm unsupp ;
.Cm all
is an alias for
.Cm warning .
By default,
.Nm
is silent.
See the
.Xr mandoc 1
manual for details.
.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 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, 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,
.Xr more 1
.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 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 ;
and
.Fl s
and
.Fl S
in
.Ox 2.3 .