NAME

man − find manual information by keywords; print out a manual page

SYNOPSIS

man −k keyword ... 
man −f file ... 
man [ − ] [ section ] title ... 

DESCRIPTION

Man is a program that gives information from the HP-UX Reference Manual.  It can be asked to provide one-line descriptions of commands specified by name, or to list all commands whose description contains any of a set of keywords.  It can also provide online access to the sections of the printed manual. 

When given the option −k and a set of keywords, man prints out a one line synopsis of each manual section whose listing in the table of contents contains that keyword.  The −k option requires that the file /usr/lib/whatis exist.  The /usr/lib/whatis file can be created with catman(1M).

When given the option −f and a list of file names, man attempts to locate manual sections related to those files, printing out the table of contents lines for those sections. 

When neither −k nor −f is specified, man formats a specified set of manual pages.  If a section specifier is given, man looks in that section of the manual for the given titles.  Section is an arabic section number, for example, 3, which may be followed by a single letter classifier, for example, 1g, indicating a graphics program in section 1.  If section is omitted, man searches all sections of the manual, giving preference to commands over subroutines in system libraries, and printing the first section it finds, if any.  Each title is truncated to at most 11 characters to assure that there will be room for the section. The files in the /usr/man directories also truncate the title portion of the file name at 11 characters to assure room for the suffix in the 14 character file name. 

If the standard output is a teletype, or if the flag − is given, man pipes its output through more(1), with the −s option, to stop after each page. 

Man searches in three directories for the specified manual entry.  First man searches in /usr/man, then in /usr/contrib/man, and finally in /usr/local/man.  Within each of these directories, man searches in the cat*.Z subdirectories, the man*.Z subdirectories, the cat* subdirectories, and the man* subdirectories.  The man*.Z and man* directories contain the nroff(1) source for the entries.  The cat*.Z and cat* directories contain the formatted versions of the entries.  The man*.Z and cat.Z directories contain entries in compressed form and must be uncompressed before they are used. 

If LANG environment variable is set to any valid language name defined by langid(5), man searches in three additional directories for the manual entry before searching in /usr/man.  First, man searches in /usr/man/$LANG, then in /usr/contrib/man/$LANG, and then in /usr/local/man/$LANG.  Therefore, the native language manual pages will be displayed if they are installed properly in the system. 

Man uses the most recent version that it finds in the subdirectories searched.  If the most recent version is in:

man*.Z the entry is uncompressed, formatted, and displayed. If the cat*.Z directory exists, the formatted entry is compressed and installed in cat*.Z.  If the cat* directory exists, the formatted entry is installed in cat*. 

cat*.Z the entry is uncompressed and displayed. 

man* the entry is formatted, and displayed.  If the cat*.Z directory exists, it is compressed, and installed in cat*.Z.  If the cat* directory exists, the formatted entry is installed in cat*. 

cat* the entry is displayed. 

If only the cat* or cat*.Z subdirectory is present and/or nroff(1) is not installed, only those pages that have already been formatted are displayable.

If you choose to have the formatted entries on your system, run catman(1M) with the default, which creates the cat*.Z directories (after removing any cat* directories that exist on your system).  If you choose to have the cat* directories, it would be space-saving to remove any cat*.Z directories that may exist on your system.  Beware that man will update both directories (cat* and cat*.Z) if they both exist. 

EXAMPLES

The following command lists the manual page entries with the word grep in the permuted index listing:

man -k grep

The following is printed after the above command is entered:

grep, egrep, fgrep (1) − search a pattern

The following prints the entire manual page for grep(1):

man grep

FILES

/usr/lib/whatis keyword database

/usr/man/cat*[.Z]/∗ formatted manual pages [compressed]

/usr/man/man*[.Z]/∗ raw (nroff(1) source) manual pages [compressed]

/usr/contrib/man/cat*[.Z]/∗

/usr/contrib/man/man*[.Z]/∗

/usr/local/man/cat*[.Z]/∗

/usr/local/man/man*[.Z]/∗

/usr/man/$LANG/cat*[.Z]/∗ formatted native language manual pages [compressed]

/usr/man/$LANG/man*[.Z]/∗ raw (nroff(1) source) native language manual pages [compressed]

/usr/contrib/man/$LANG/cat*[.Z]/∗

/usr/contrib/man/$LANG/man*[.Z]/∗

/usr/local/man/$LANG/cat*[.Z]/∗

/usr/local/man/$LANG/man*[.Z]/∗

SEE ALSO

catman(1M), more(1), compress(1), fixman(1). 

WARNINGS

The manual is supposed to be reproducible either on the phototypesetter or on a typewriter.  However, on a typewriter some information is necessarily lost. 

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

8- and 16-bit data; 8-bit file names, messages. 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  May 11, 2021