NAME

intro − introduction to commands and application programs

DESCRIPTION

This section describes, in alphabetical order, publicly-accessible commands.  Certain distinctions of purpose are made in the headings:

(1) Commands of general utility. 

(1C) Commands for communication with other systems. 

(1G) Commands used primarily for graphics and computer-aided design. 

COMMAND SYNTAX

Unless otherwise noted, commands described in this section accept options and other arguments according to the following syntax:

name [option(s)] [cmdarg(s)]
where:

name The name of an executable file. 

option − noargletter(s) or,
− argletter<>optarg
where <> is optional white space.

noargletter A single letter representing an option without an argument. 

argletter A single letter representing an option requiring an argument. 

optarg Argument (character string) satisfying preceding argletter.

cmdarg Path name (or other command argument) not beginning with − or, − by itself indicating the standard input. 

HP-UX COMPATIBILITY

Level: This describes where in the HP-UX compatibility model this capability appears.  See the Introduction to this manual for a detailed explanation of the model. 

Origin: This gives authorship credit as appropriate.  The following abbreviations are used:

System III means from Bell UNIX System III. 

System V means from AT&T UNIX System V (release 2 unless noted otherwise). 

HP means written by HP. 

UCB means derived from U. C. Berkeley 4.1BSD. 

V7 means included for UNIX Version 7 compatibility (and not in Bell System V). 

Requires: This indicates any special hardware or software requirements for the code to operate properly.  If a capability deviates from the HP-UX standard, the deviations will be displayed in one of two ways.  Minor deviations will be in separate sections in the body of the manual.  New pages will be generated where necessary, and the top center of the page will indicate the deviation. 

Remarks: identifies which implementation(s) are described by the manual page. 

DESCRIPTION

This section describes, in alphabetical order, publicly-accessible commands.  Certain distinctions of purpose are made in the headings:

(1) Commands of general utility. 

(1C) Commands for communication with other systems. 

(1G) Commands used primarily for graphics and computer-aided design. 

(1M)
Commands used primarily for system maintenance.

HARDWARE DEPENDENCIES

This section gives details about specific implementations of HP-UX that deviate from information already given for that manual entry.  It is very important that you check this section, if present, to make sure that certain options and/or capabilities are implemented on your computer.  If there are extensive changes, new manual pages are generated and flagged as being implementation specific. 

SEE ALSO

The SEE ALSO entries are chosen in part to guide the reader to related topics that might prove useful.  The list may not always be relevant, depending on the user’s needs.  SEE ALSO entries may refer to capabilities not available in all implementations if they are relevant in the more complete implementations.  Examples of SEE ALSO entries are:

getopt(1), exit(2), wait(2), getopt(3C). 
Introduction to the HP-UX Reference at the front of this volume. 

DIAGNOSTICS

Upon termination, each command returns two bytes of status, one supplied by the system and giving the cause for termination, and (in the case of “normal” termination) one supplied by the program (see wait(2) and exit(2)). The former byte is 0 for normal termination; the latter is customarily 0 for successful execution and non-zero to indicate troubles such as erroneous parameters, bad or inaccessible data, or other inability to cope with the task at hand. It is called variously “exit code”, “exit status”, or “return code”, and is described only where special conventions are involved.

BUGS

Unfortunately, many commands do not adhere to the aforementioned syntax. 

WARNINGS

Some commands produce unexpected results when processing files containing null characters.  These commands often treat text input lines as strings and therefore become confused upon encountering a null character (the string terminator) within a line. 
 

Hewlett-Packard  —  last mod. May 11, 2021