man(1) man(1)
NAME
man, apropos, whatis, findman - display on-line manual pages
SYNOPSIS
man [-e] [section | -s section] [--] title ...
man -r [--] mansrcfile ...
apropos [-e] [--] regexpkeyword ...
man -k [-e] [--] regexpkeyword ...
whatis [--] regexpkeyword ...
findman [-e] [--] regexpkeyword ...
man -f [-e] [--] regexpkeyword ...
DESCRIPTION
The man command displays reference manual pages that document com-
mands, system calls, subroutines, file formats, etc., in the base pro-
duct and optional products.
A title can exist in more than one section. When a section is speci-
fied, man searches for the specified title only in that section. The
title and section searches are made without regard to case. The
section is specified by a number or number/letter combination. Sec-
tions are typically associated with general topics, as described
below:
1 = Commands/Applications
1M = System Administration Commands
2 = System Calls
3 = Subroutines
4 = File Formats
5 = Miscellaneous Facilities
7 = Special Files
8 = System Maintenance
If the section is not specified, man searches all sections (first com-
mands, then functions) and prints all manual pages found. If the
section does not begin with a digit, -s must be used. If no manual
pages are found, man prints an error message.
If the preformatted version of interest is out of date or missing, man
reformats it prior to display. If directories for the preformatted
versions are not provided or creatable, man reformats a page whenever
it is requested; it uses a temporary file to store the formatted text
during display.
The commands apropos, whatis and findman are short forms for the man
command with specific options (see below).
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man(1) man(1)
OPTIONS
-e Forces the section match to be exact (default for whatis). If -e
is specified, only the man pages in the specified section will be
displayed. If the section does not begin with a digit, -s must be
used.
-f Displays one-line summaries whose title keyword to the left of
the separator "-" matches regexpkeyword (default for findman and
whatis). See Example 1.
-k Displays one-line summaries whose title and/or abstract to the
left and right of the separator "-" match regexpkeyword (default
for apropos). See Example 2.
-r Arguments are taken to be files containing man macros. These
files are formatted and written to standard output. This option
also ignores the mandb database and existing cat pages.
-s Specification of a section. This option must be used to search a
section which does not begin with a number.
-- If title or regexpkeyword begin with a dash (-), the end of the
command-line options must be marked with --.
mansrcfile
File containing man(5) macros.
regexpkeyword
Extended regular expression [see expressions(5)] to select a
title or abstract.
Warning: A regular expression should be enclosed in single quotes
(') for the purposes of security.
section
Section to be searched. See Example 3.
title
old text: Name of an entry in the reference manual (e.g. a com-
mand, a system call, etc). This name can be specified as a simple
regular expression [see expressions(5)].
LOCALE
The LCMESSAGES environment variable governs the language in which
message texts are displayed. If LCMESSAGES is undefined or is defined
as the null string, it defaults to the value of LANG. If LANG is like-
wise undefined or null, the system acts as if it were not internation-
alized.
The LCALL environment variable governs the entire locale. LCALL
takes precedence over all the other environment variables which affect
internationalization.
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man(1) man(1)
EXAMPLES
Example 1
Search for manual page titles (to the left of the separator "-" only)
containing the regular expression "mount":
findman mount
mount (1M-nfs) - mounting remote NFS resources
mount (1M-hs) - mount hs file systems
mountd (1M) - NFS mount request server
mount (1M) - mount or unmount file systems and remote resources
mount (1M-ufs) - mount ufs file systems
mount (1M-vxfs) - mount a Veritas File System (VxFS)
mountall (1M) - mount, unmount multiple file systems
mountfsys (1M) - mount, unmount a file system
mount (2) - mount a file system
Example 2
Search for manual page titles containing the regular expression
"mount". This search also covers the short explanation, i.e. to the
left and right of the separator "-".
apropos mount
automount (1M) - automatically mount NFS file systems
dfmounts (1M) - display information on mounted NFS resources
mount (1M-nfs) - mounting remote NFS resources
mount (1M-hs) - mount hs file systems
mountd (1M) - NFS mount request server
showmount (1M) - show information on available or mounted NFS resources
unshare (1M) - make local NFS resource unavailable for mounting by
remote systems
mnttab (4) - mounted file system table
mount (1M) - mount or unmount file systems and remote resources
mount (1M-ufs) - mount ufs file systems
mount (1M-vxfs) - mount a Veritas File System (VxFS)
mountall (1M) - mount, unmount multiple file systems
mountfsys (1M) - mount, unmount a file system
setmnt (1M) - establish mount table
umount (1M) - mount or unmount file systems and remote resources
umountall (1M) - mount, unmount multiple file systems
umountfsys (1M) - mount, unmount a file system
mount (2) - mount a file system
umount (2) - unmount a file system
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Example 3
Displays only the Veritas version of the command description for
"mount":
man 1M-vxfs mount
Example 4
Displays all command descriptions for "mount":
man mount
NOTES
Some dumb terminals cannot correctly process the vertical motions pro-
duced by eqn(1M) preprocessing flag. Information indicated by font
changes and other phototypsetting directives may be lost.
These commands may take a -v which turns on a debug mode. This option,
and the output that is produced, is subject to change or removal
without notice.
The UCB compatibility utilities:
/usr/ucb/man
/usr/ucb/whatis
/usr/ucb/catman
/usr/ucb/apropos
are not compatible with the utilities listed in this manual page.
The manprint command allows you to print a manual page on a line
printer, while maintaining page integrity with the screen output.
Further details can be found under manprint(1).
ENVIRONMENT
LANG Environment variable for the language setting. Default:
EnUS.ASCII [cf. locale(1), -a option].
MANPATH If set, its value overrides the default search path,
/usr/share/man/mrd/%L:/usr/share/man/mrd:/usr/share/man. A %L
in $MANPATH will be replaced by the value of $LANG when
invoking the command. If $LANG is not set or not valid, it is
replaced by EnUS.ASCII.
PAGER A program to use for interactively delivering man output to
the screen. If not set, more -cdEilqws [see more(1)] is used.
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FILES
/usr/share/man/mrd
Main directory for the on-line man page system.
/usr/share/man/mrd/$LANG/catman/*
Directory for compressed and formatted manual pages (.Z files),
displayed when you call the man command.
/usr/share/man/mrd/$LANG/.mandb/*
Directory that serves as a basis for the mandb database
(/usr/share/man/mrd/*/mandb).
If the date of this directory is more recent than that of the
mandb database file, this file is regenerated and an appropriate
message is issued [cf. catman(1M)].
/usr/share/man/mrd/$LANG/mandb
Database file with the titles of the manual pages, section
numbers, file names and short descriptions created on the basis
of the .mandb directory.
SEE ALSO
manprint(1), more(1), catman(1M), neqn(1M), nroff(1M), expressions(5),
man(5).
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