.TH "MAN" "1" "January 31, 2017" "Debian" "General Commands Manual"
.nh
.if n .ad l
.SH "NAME"
\fBman\fR
\- display manual pages
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP 4n
\fBman\fR
[\fB\-acfhklw\fR]
[\fB\-C\fR\ \fIfile\fR]
[\fB\-I\fR\ \fBos\fR=\fIname\fR]
[\fB\-K\fR\ \fIencoding\fR]
[\fB\-M\fR\ \fIpath\fR]
[\fB\-m\fR\ \fIpath\fR]
[\fB\-O\fR\ \fIoption\fR=\fIvalue\fR]
[\fB\-S\fR\ \fIsubsection\fR]
[\fB\-s\fR\ \fIsection\fR]
[\fB\-T\fR\ \fIoutput\fR]
[\fB\-W\fR\ \fIlevel\fR]
[\fIsection\fR]
\fIname\ ...\fR
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
The
\fBman\fR
utility
displays the
manual pages entitled
\fIname\fR.
Pages may be selected according to
a specific category
(\fIsection\fR)
or
machine architecture
(\fIsubsection\fR).
.PP
The options are as follows:
.TP 8n
\fB\-a\fR
Display all matching manual pages.
Normally, only the first page found is displayed.
.TP 8n
\fB\-C\fR \fIfile\fR
Use the specified
\fIfile\fR
instead of the default configuration file.
This permits users to configure their own manual environment.
See
man.conf(5)
for a description of the contents of this file.
.TP 8n
\fB\-c\fR
Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using
more(1)
to paginate it.
This is done by default if the standard output is not a terminal device.
.TP 8n
\fB\-f\fR
A synonym for
whatis(1).
It searches for
\fIname\fR
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
\fB\-k\fR
and
\fB\-l\fR
options.
.TP 8n
\fB\-h\fR
Display only the SYNOPSIS lines of the requested manual pages.
Implies
\fB\-a\fR
and
\fB\-c\fR.
.TP 8n
\fB\-I\fR \fBos\fR=\fIname\fR
Override the default operating system
\fIname\fR
for the
mdoc(7)
\fB\&Os\fR
and for the
man(7)
\fB\&TH\fR
macro.
.TP 8n
\fB\-K\fR \fIencoding\fR
Specify the input encoding.
The supported
\fIencoding\fR
arguments are
\fBus-ascii\fR,
\fBiso-8859-1\fR,
and
\fButf-8\fR.
By default, the encoding is automatically detected as described in the
mandoc(1)
manual.
.TP 8n
\fB\-k\fR
A synonym for
apropos(1).
Instead of
\fIname\fR,
an expression can be provided using the syntax described in the
apropos(1)
manual.
By default, it displays the header lines of all matching pages.
This overrides any earlier
\fB\-f\fR
and
\fB\-l\fR
options.
.TP 8n
\fB\-l\fR
A synonym for
mandoc(1)
\fB\-a\fR.
The
\fIname\fR
arguments are interpreted as filenames.
No search is done and
\fIfile\fR,
\fIpath\fR,
\fIsection\fR,
and
\fIsubsection\fR
are ignored.
This overrides any earlier
\fB\-f\fR,
\fB\-k\fR,
and
\fB\-w\fR
options.
.TP 8n
\fB\-M\fR \fIpath\fR
Override the list of standard directories which
\fBman\fR
searches for manual pages.
The supplied
\fIpath\fR
must be a colon
(\(oq\&:\(cq)
separated list of directories.
This search path may also be set using the environment variable
\fRMANPATH\fR.
.TP 8n
\fB\-m\fR \fIpath\fR
Augment the list of standard directories which
\fBman\fR
searches for manual pages.
The supplied
\fIpath\fR
must be a colon
(\(oq\&:\(cq)
separated list of directories.
These directories will be searched before the standard directories or
the directories specified using the
\fB\-M\fR
option or the
\fRMANPATH\fR
environment variable.
.TP 8n
\fB\-O\fR \fIoption\fR=\fIvalue\fR
Comma-separated output options.
For each output format, the available options are described in the
mandoc(1)
manual.
.TP 8n
\fB\-S\fR \fIsubsection\fR
Restricts the directories that
\fBman\fR
will search to those of a specific
machine(1)
architecture.
\fIsubsection\fR
is case insensitive.
.sp
By default manual pages for all architectures are installed.
Therefore this option can be used to view pages for one
architecture whilst using another.
.sp
This option overrides the
\fRMACHINE\fR
environment variable.
.TP 8n
[\fB\-s\fR] \fIsection\fR
Only select manuals from the specified
\fIsection\fR.
The currently available sections are:
.sp
.RS 14n
.PD 0
.TP 10n
1
General commands
(tools and utilities).
.TP 10n
2
System calls and error numbers.
.TP 10n
3
Library functions.
.TP 10n
3p
perl(1)
programmer's reference guide.
.TP 10n
4
Device drivers.
.TP 10n
5
File formats.
.TP 10n
6
Games.
.TP 10n
7
Miscellaneous information.
.TP 10n
8
System maintenance and operation commands.
.TP 10n
9
Kernel internals.
.RE
.PD
.TP 8n
\fB\-T\fR \fIoutput\fR
Select the output format.
The default is
\fBlocale\fR.
The other output modes
\fBascii\fR,
\fBhtml\fR,
\fBlint\fR,
\fBman\fR,
\fBpdf\fR,
\fBps\fR,
\fBtree\fR,
and
\fButf8\fR
are described in the
mandoc(1)
manual.
.TP 8n
\fB\-W\fR \fIlevel\fR
Specify the minimum message
\fIlevel\fR
to be reported on the standard error output and to affect the exit status.
The
\fIlevel\fR
can be
\fBwarning\fR,
\fBerror\fR,
or
\fBunsupp\fR;
\fBall\fR
is an alias for
\fBwarning\fR.
By default,
\fBman\fR
is silent.
See the
mandoc(1)
manual for details.
.TP 8n
\fB\-w\fR
List the pathnames of the manual pages which
\fBman\fR
would display for the specified
\fIsection\fR
and
\fIname\fR
combination.
.PP
Guidelines for writing
man pages can be found in
mdoc(7).
.PP
If both a formatted and an unformatted version of the same manual page,
for example
\fIcat1/foo.0\fR
and
\fIman1/foo.1\fR,
exist in the same directory, and at least one of them is selected,
only the newer one is used.
However, if both the
\fB\-a\fR
and the
\fB\-w\fR
options are specified, both file names are printed.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT"
.TP 10n
\fRMACHINE\fR
As some manual pages are intended only for specific architectures,
\fBman\fR
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
\fRMACHINE\fR
to the name of a specific architecture,
or with the
\fB\-S\fR
option.
\fRMACHINE\fR
is case insensitive.
.TP 10n
\fRMANPAGER\fR
Any non-empty value of the environment variable
\fRMANPAGER\fR
will be used instead of the standard pagination program,
more(1).
If
less(1)
is used, the interactive
\fB:t\fR
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,
errno(2)
values, and some other emphasized words.
Some terms may have defining text at more than one place.
In that case, the
less(1)
interactive commands
\fBt\fR
and
\fBT\fR
can be used to move to the next and to the previous place providing
information about the term last searched for with
\fB:t\fR.
.TP 10n
\fRMANPATH\fR
The standard search path used by
\fBman\fR
may be overridden by specifying a path in the
\fRMANPATH\fR
environment
variable.
The format of the path is a colon
(\(oq\&:\(cq)
separated list of directories.
.TP 10n
\fRPAGER\fR
Specifies the pagination program to use when
\fRMANPAGER\fR
is not defined.
If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined,
more(1)
\fB\-s\fR
will be used.
.SH "FILES"
.TP 15n
\fI/etc/man.conf\fR
default man configuration file
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
.br
The \fBman\fR utility exits\~0 on success, and\~>0 if an error occurs.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
apropos(1),
intro(1),
whatis(1),
whereis(1),
intro(2),
intro(3),
intro(4),
intro(5),
man.conf(5),
intro(6),
intro(7),
mdoc(7),
intro(8),
intro(9)
.SH "STANDARDS"
The
\fBman\fR
utility is compliant with the
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (\(LqPOSIX.1\(Rq)
specification.
.PP
The flags
[\fB\-aCcfhIKlMmOSsTWw\fR],
as well as the environment variables
\fRMACHINE\fR,
\fRMANPAGER\fR,
and
\fRMANPATH\fR,
are extensions to that specification.
.SH "HISTORY"
A
\fBman\fR
command first appeared in
Version\~3 AT&T UNIX.
.PP
The
\fB\-w\fR
option first appeared in
Version\~7 AT&T UNIX;
\fB\-f\fR
and
\fB\-k\fR
in
4BSD;
\fB\-M\fR
in
4.3BSD;
\fB\-a\fR
in
4.3BSD-Tahoe;
\fB\-c\fR
and
\fB\-m\fR
in
4.3BSD-Reno;
\fB\-h\fR
in
4.3BSD-Net/2;
\fB\-C\fR
in
NetBSD 1.0;
\fB\-s\fR
and
\fB\-S\fR
in
OpenBSD 2.3;
and
\fB\-I\fR,
\fB\-K\fR,
\fB\-l\fR,
\fB\-O\fR,
and
\fB\-W\fR
in
OpenBSD 5.7.
The
\fB\-T\fR
option first appeared in
AT&T System\~III UNIX
and was also added in
OpenBSD 5.7.