man(1)
man --
display reference manual pages
Synopsis
man [-]
[-a | -F]
[-bcw]
[-d dir]
[-M path]
[-m macro-package ]
[-p pager]
[-s ]
[-t proc]
[-T term]
[[section[:section: . . .]]
title . . . ] [title]:[section] . . .
man [-M path]
-k keyword . . .
man [-M path]
-e | -f command . . .
Description
The man command locates and displays the
manual page named title.
man can also display a one-line summary selected either by
keyword (-k) or by the name of an associated file
(-e or -f).
Because UNIX® commands are lowercase,
the title is almost always entered in lowercase.
There are instances where title contains mixed upper
and lowercase letters, such as the Intro pages.
man searches sections (if specified)
for the titles.
section is either a number or letter (sometimes followed by
additional mnemonic letters or numbers indicating the type of manual page).
To search a group of sections, separate the sections
with colons (``:'') on the command line.
If no section is specified, man searches
all reference sections (giving preference to commands over functions)
for title and displays the matching man pages.
Manual pages are HTML, formatted
nroff(1bsd)
source prepared with the -man macro package,
or nroff source files.
SCO-supplied reference pages are located in directories under
/usr/man[/LANG]/man/html.section,
.../cat.section,
and .../man.section.
LANG is the locale name for non-English manual pages, and
is omitted from the path for English-language pages, which are the
default.
man can also locate man pages under any other directory
named in the MANPATH environment vriable, whose system-wide default is
located in the file /usr/default/man.
The subdirectories can be named using the format
cat1 and man1
through cat8 and man8
for compatibility with older versions of man.
man searches for the requested manual page
in this order:
-
html.section
If man finds the manual page in this section,
it stops searching and displays this page.
-
cat.section
man.section
If man finds no HTML version,
it searches these directories.
If the most recent copy is in a
man.section source directory,
man reformats the version in the source
directory and displays it using the default terminal type.
man also places a display copy of the output
in the cat.section directory for future use.
NOTE:
A file that must be processed takes longer to appear than a display copy.
-
cat1 through cat8
man1 through man8
If man does not find the requested page
in the man.section or cat.section
directories, it searches these directories.
If no manual page is located, man prints an error message.
By default, man pipes its output through
pg(1)
to handle paging and underlining on the screen.
If the standard output is not a terminal, or if the -
flag is given, man pipes its output through
cat(1).
The following options are available:
--
Pipes the output of man through cat
instead of pg.
-a-
Specifies ALL mode (incompatible with the -F option).
man displays all manual pages with matching titles
(equivalent to specifying MODE=ALL
in /etc/default/man).
See
MODE.
-b-
Leaves blank lines in output.
Entries are normally padded with blank lines for line printer purposes;
without this option, man filters out excess blank lines
and does not display more than two consecutive blank lines.
-c-
Invokes
col(1)
if the display does not support character formatting.
col is invoked automatically by
man unless the terminal
(defined by -T term)
is one of the following: 300, 300s, 450,
37, 4000a, 382, 4014, tek,
1620, or X.
-d dir-
Specifies directory dir path to be added to the default search path.
To specify several directories to search, separate the directory names
with colons (``:'') on the command line.
-e, -f command . . .-
man attempts to locate and display the
names and short descriptions of manual pages related to
the given commands.
The commands can be separated by commas, or by spaces if the
list is enclosed in quotes.
The full name of command must be given;
however, man is case-insensitive.
man -e and man -f are equivalent to
whatis(1bsd).
-F file . . .-
Specifies FIRST mode (incompatible with the -a option).
man displays only the first matching title
(equivalent to specifying MODE=FIRST
in /etc/default/man).
See
MODE.
-k keyword . . .-
man prints one-line summaries from the
whatis(4)
database that contain any of the given keywords.
man -k is equivalent to
apropos(1bsd).
-m macro-package-
man uses macro-package
rather than the standard -man macros
defined in /usr/ucblib/doctools/tmac/an
for formatting manual pages (see
man(5bsd)).
When specifying the -m option to man,
you must give the full pathname:
man -m /usr/ucblib/doctools/tmac/bib ls
-M path-
Specifies the search path for manual pages.
path is a colon-separated list of directories
that contain manual page directory subtrees.
When used with the -k, -e, or -f
options, the -M option must appear first.
man assumes that each directory in
path contains subdirectories of the form
man.[1-8] followed by mnemonic strings that indicate the interface.
-p pager-
Specifies a paging program pager to use to display the entry.
Paging systems, such as
more(1),
pg(1),
cat(1),
or any other custom pagers are valid arguments for this option.
You can override the default pager, pg
(set in /etc/default/man)
by setting the environment variable
PAGER
to the name of another paging program.
The pager defined by -p overrides both of these.
-s-
Specify the manual page section name (section) to be used
(the first argument after the options will be treated as section
name(s).
The man command first checks whether
multiple section names (delimited by the ``:'' character)
or sections 1 to 8 are specified.
If not, man matches this argument with the
existing man section names in the /etc/default/manSection file.
If it finds a match, man
treats this argument as a section name,
otherwise it treats it as a man page title.
-t proc-
Passes the unprocessed manual page to proc
(where proc is
nroff(1bsd),
troff(1bsd),
or any other command script in /usr/ucb).
When used with -, -t troff
results in the manual page being filtered as a PostScript file
and sent to the printer.
-T term-
Specifies the terminal type
(see
term(5)
and
``Notices'').
man formats the entry and passes the given term
value to the processing program, then prints it on the standard output
(usually, the terminal).
-w-
Prints only the pathnames of the entries.
Default man settings
The
/etc/default/man
file contains the default settings for man.
To select a different paging system, search path, terminal type,
search order, mode, and processor for the man system,
change the information in this file.
The following variables are set in /etc/default/man:
MANPATH-
Changes or augments the default path that man searches
for entries.
man looks for the specified manual page title
in the section directories in the order specified by
MANPATH.
Multiple directories set with this variable must be delimited by
colon characters (``:'').
If the MANPATH environment variable is present,
the directories are searched in the order that they appear.
The entry ``docview'' must appear in the MANPATH list
for
MANSERVER
to be included in the search path.
Alternate subdirectories are expected to have the same hierarchical
structure as the default directories under /usr/man.
See
UNRESOLVED XREF-0.
If the man page is not found in the directories specified by
MANPATH, man returns an error.
The -M option overrides this value.
MANPORT-
Specifies the TCP port number for the remote manual page server
(normally set to 8458).
MANSERVER-
Defines the name of the host machine that is serving manual pages using
DocView.
If set to localhost (the default), man
connects to the DocView server on the local system
and searches for the pages locally.
If MANSERVER specifies a remote manual page server,
man opens a remote socket connection to the
DocView server on the remote system.
MODE-
If set to ALL, displays all matching manual pages.
If set to FIRST, displays only the first matching title.
The -a and -F options override this value.
ORDER-
Specifies the order in which to search the manual page sections
for a specified manual page title if a
section is not also specified.
To change the search order for manual page sections, edit the list.
Be certain the section names are separated with colons (``:'').
Section names not specified in ORDER are searched in
arbitrary order after those specified.
PAGER-
Specifies the paging program to use to deliver
the output of man to the screen.
If not set, man uses more -s.
See
more(1).
The -p option overrides this value.
PROC-
Specifies the name of the formatter to use by default when the
-t flag is given.
TERM-
Specifies the terminal type on which output is to be printed.
The -T option overrides this value.
Environment variables
If set, the following environment variables override the default values
defined in /etc/default/man:
-
MANPATH
-
MANPORT
-
MANSERVER
-
PAGER
See
``Default man settings''
for the definitions of these variables.
Files
/etc/default/man-
file containing the default settings for man
/usr/man[/LANG]-
root of the standard manual page directory subtree
/usr/man[/LANG]/whatis-
master merged keyword database used by man
/usr/ucblib/doctools/tmac/an-
standard -man macro package
/usr/ucblib/pub/eqnchar-
special character definitions for
eqn(1bsd)
/usr/lib/locale/locale/uxcore-
language-specific message file (see LANG in
environ(5))
References
apropos(1bsd),
cat(1),
catman(1Mbsd),
col(1),
environ(5),
eqn(1bsd),
eqnchar(5bsd),
index(4),
lp(1),
makewhatis(1M),
man(5bsd),
more(1),
nroff(1bsd),
refer(1bsd),
term(5),
tbl(1bsd),
troff(1bsd),
whatis(1bsd),
whatis(4)
Notices
The entries in some equations and tables might be either
lost or approximated if they cannot be reproduced exactly online.
Some dumb terminals cannot process the vertical motions
produced by the -e (or -f) flag
(see
eqn(1bsd)).
To prevent garbled output on these terminals,
when you use -e, also use -c to invoke
col(1)
implicitly.
This workaround has the disadvantage of eliminating superscripts and
subscripts -- even on those terminals that can display them.
If a terminal gets confused by eqn output,
use <Ctrl>q to clear the terminal.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004