Find a man page

Is it some kind of arcane knowledge, handed down only to initiates after grueling initiations? Well, no. Actually, anyone can learn about Terminal commands, if they know where to look. The key to Terminal wisdom is the man command. In fact, man itself is a command, whose role is to format and display this documentation.

SEE VIDEO BY TOPIC: WT2015: How to write Linux/Unix man pages (quick and dirty method)

Content:

• Master the command line: How to use man pages
• Subscribe to RSS
• How to effectively use Man Pages under Linux
• man Command
• GUI Methods
• How to Search Man Pages at the Command Line
• find(1) [v7 man page]
• find(1) - Linux man page

SEE VIDEO BY TOPIC: Linux Command Line (03) ls, command, and man pages

Master the command line: How to use man pages

The command used to display them is man. In spite of their scope, man pages are designed to be self-contained documents, consequentially limiting themselves to referring to other man pages when discussing related subjects. This is in sharp contrast with the hyperlink-aware Info documents , GNU's attempt at replacing the traditional man page format.

Manuals are sorted into several sections. For a full listing see the section entitled "Sections of the manual pages" in man-pages 7. Man pages are usually referred to by their name, followed by their section number in parentheses. Often there are multiple man pages of the same name, such as man 1 and man 7. In this case, give man the section number followed by the name of the man page, for example:. Man pages all follow a fairly standard format, which helps in navigating them. See the section entitled "Sections within a manual page" in man-pages 7.

Man pages can be searched when the exact name of a page is not known using any of the following equivalent commands:. One-line descriptions of man pages can be displayed using the whatis command. For example, for a brief description of the man page sections about ls , type:. If the number of columns in the terminal is too small e. This can be very disturbing for reading. With Bash , that would be:. Instead of the standard interface, using browsers such as lynx and Firefox to view man pages allows users to reap info pages' main benefit of hyperlinked text.

Alternatives include the following:. This article or section is a candidate for moving to Installation. Install the mandoc AUR package. To convert a page, for example free 1 :. First, install man2html from the official repositories. The GNU implementation of man in the Arch repositories also has the ability to do this on its own:. You can override this by passing the binary to the -H option. Caveats: Fonts are generally limited to Times at hardcoded sizes. There are no hyperlinks.

Some man pages were specifically designed for terminal viewing, and won't look right in PS or PDF form. Here follows a non-exhaustive list of noteworthy pages that might help you understand a lot of things more in-depth. More generally, have a look at category 7 miscellaneous pages :.

Related articles Color output in console man. Note: The search feature is provided by a dedicated cache. By default, maintenance of that cache is handled by man-db. If you are getting a "nothing appropriate" message for every search, try manually regenerating the cache by running mandb as root. Notes: All man page viewers should be listed together. Discuss in Talk:Man page. Tip: You can use the! Bang to search through the Arch Linux man pages directly.

Warning: Some distributions provide patched or outdated man pages that differ from those provided by Arch. Exercise caution when using online man pages. Category : Command-line. Hidden category: Pages or sections flagged with Template:Move.

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The man command provides reference information on topics, such as commands, subroutines, and files. The man command provides one-line descriptions of commands specified by name. The man command also provides information on all commands whose descriptions contain a set of user-specified keywords. The man command formats a specified set of manual pages.

The online Reference Manual man pages provide detailed descriptions and usage of the commands. You can use the man command to display the man page entry that explains a given command. The syntax of the man command is as follows. The online man page entries are organized into sections based on the type or usage of the command or file. For example, Section 1 contains user commands, and Section 4 contains information about various file formats.

How to effectively use Man Pages under Linux

While they're not all well-advertised, there are actually a variety of means of getting help under Unix. Man pages correspond to online manuals for programs, file formats, functions, system calls, and so forth. If you've never read one before, the best way to start is by typing 'man man ' at the command line. Of course, while man pages are a vast improvement over the online documentation of most other OSes, they suffer from many failings: some people don't like to read text on the screen not very helpful unless you already know what to look for not always accessible even when present not always present, especially under Linux frequently hard to read, as they try to be authoritative and are therefore often too technical for new users frequently out of date That said, they're still better and more comprehensive than the alternatives. We'll try to address the first three failings in this document. Man pages are the standard documentation for every Unix; you're sure to come across a reference before too long of the form:. Where N is a number from , possibly followed by a letter. Here's an example we'll pick apart note: this example does not apply to all UNIX's but should be taken as general form.

man Command

By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie Policy , Privacy Policy , and our Terms of Service. Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It only takes a minute to sign up. In which directory can I find the files of the man pages, i.

By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie Policy , Privacy Policy , and our Terms of Service. Ask Ubuntu is a question and answer site for Ubuntu users and developers. It only takes a minute to sign up. Patterns can be regular expressions , for example, you could search for the word "option" by typing.

GUI Methods

Search a folder hierarchy for filename s that meet a desired criteria: Name, Size, File Type - see examples. GNU find searches the directory tree rooted at each given file name by evaluating the given expression from left to right, according to the rules of precedence see Operators , until the outcome is known the left hand side is false for AND operations, true for OR , at which point find moves on to the next file name. The -H, -L and -P options control the treatment of symbolic links.

Command line users are undoubtedly familiar with man pages, or manual pages, that contain details, help , and documentation to specified commands and functions. Referencing a man page can be essential when trying to learn proper syntax or how a command works, but with how large some manual pages are it can be a real drag to scroll through the entire man page to try and find a relevant portion. Note the flag is a capital -K, the string can be anything. Any matches to the syntax in the current man page will be highlighted. And for those who use Terminal app, remember you can also search and launch manual pages from the Terminal Help menu directly, which would then allow you to use the aforementioned string search to look within a help doc to get further details.

How to Search Man Pages at the Command Line

The command used to display them is man. In spite of their scope, man pages are designed to be self-contained documents, consequentially limiting themselves to referring to other man pages when discussing related subjects. This is in sharp contrast with the hyperlink-aware Info documents , GNU's attempt at replacing the traditional man page format. Manuals are sorted into several sections. For a full listing see the section entitled "Sections of the manual pages" in man-pages 7. Man pages are usually referred to by their name, followed by their section number in parentheses.

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find(1) - Linux man page

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