01-C.22: Man Page Format
- Page ID
- 26798
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Man Pages and The Man Command
Man pages are all formatted the exact same way. Conventional section names include NAME, SYNOPSIS, CONFIGURATION, DESCRIPTION, OPTIONS, EXIT STATUS, RETURN VALUE, ERRORS, ENVIRONMENT, FILES, VERSIONS, CONFORMING TO, NOTES, BUGS, EXAMPLE, AUTHORS, and SEE ALSO. However not every man page contains every one of these sections.
To access a man page a user enters the man command. The man command in Linux is used to display the user manual of any command that we can run on the terminal. It provides a detailed view of the command. To display the man page for the man command we would enter:
# The first man is the command, the second is the specific page we want to view
pbmac@pbmac-server $ man man
# Optionally we can specify the section number - there are 8 sections as described on the previous page
pbmac@pbmac-server $ man -s 1 man
The man page shown below is broken up in order to be able to discuss the sections - normally the output is all together.
At the top of every man page, in the left and right corners, is the name of the command (in this case the man command). There is the NAME section, followed by the SYNOPSIS section which lists all of the options and arguments.
MAN(1) Manual pager utils MAN(1) NAME man - an interface to the on-line reference manuals SYNOPSIS man [-C file] [-d] [-D] [--warnings[=warnings]] [-R encoding] [-L locale] [-m system[,...]] [-M path] [-S list] [-e extension] [-i|-I] [--regex|--wildcard] [--names-only] [-a] [-u] [--no-subpages] [-P pager] [-r prompt] [-7] [-E encoding] [--no-hyphenation] [--no-justification] [-p string] [-t] [-T[device]] [-H[browser]] [-X[dpi]] [-Z] [[section] page[.section] ...] ... man -k [apropos options] regexp ... man -K [-w|-W] [-S list] [-i|-I] [--regex] [section] term ... man -f [whatis options] page ... man -l [-C file] [-d] [-D] [--warnings[=warnings]] [-R encoding] [-L locale] [-P pager] [-r prompt] [-7] [-E encoding] [-p string] [-t] [-T[device]] [-H[browser]] [-X[dpi]] [-Z] file ... man -w|-W [-C file] [-d] [-D] page ... man -c [-C file] [-d] [-D] page ... man [-?V]
This is immediately followed by a detailed DESCRIPTION of the command, its purpose, and other information about the command.
DESCRIPTION man is the system's manual pager. Each page argument given to man is normally the name of a program, utility or function. The manual page associated with each of these arguments is then found and dis‐ played. A section, if provided, will direct man to look only in that section of the manual. The default action is to search in all of the available sections following a pre-defined order ("1 n l 8 3 2 3posix 3pm 3perl 3am 5 4 9 6 7" by default, unless overridden by the SECTION directive in /etc/manpath.config), and to show only the first page found, even if page exists in several sections.
There are often EXAMPLES of how to use the command. Not every single option is shown, but sufficient examples to help a user do what is being attempted, or whether to turn to some other resource for further assistance.
EXAMPLES man ls Display the manual page for the item (program) ls. man man.7 Display the manual page for macro package man from section 7. man -a intro Display, in succession, all of the available intro manual pages contained within the manual. It is possible to quit between successive displays or skip any of them.
The OPTIONS section does include each one of the options for a given command. Sometimes, even that doesn't provide the necessary clarity as to how or what a certain option does. Thank goodness for the plethora of web resources.
OPTIONS Non argument options that are duplicated either on the command line, in $MANOPT, or both, are not harm‐ ful. For options that require an argument, each duplication will override the previous argument value. General options -C file, --config-file=file Use this user configuration file rather than the default of ~/.manpath. -d, --debug Print debugging information.
Right near the end of the man page is the SEE ALSO section. This often provides valuable information about other commands that might be similar and might even be better to accomplish the user's goal. If you can't seem to figure out how to make a command behave the way you want, try looking at the SEE ALSO section and look up some of these commands as well.
SEE ALSO apropos(1), groff(1), less(1), manpath(1), nroff(1), troff(1), whatis(1), zsoelim(1), setlocale(3), man‐ path(5), ascii(7), latin1(7), man(7), catman(8), mandb(8), the man-db package manual, FSSTND
Adapted from:
"man command in Linux with Examples" by AshwinGoel, Geeks for Geeks is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0