intro(1M) intro(1M)
NAME
intro - introduction to maintenance commands and application programs
DESCRIPTION
This section describes, in alphabetical order, commands that are used
chiefly for system maintenance and administration purposes.
COMMAND SYNTAX
Since almost all commands are run via the shells ( bsh(1),sh(1),csh(1),
ksh(1),and tcsh(1)) diagnostic messages may be issued by the shells,
prior to, or even instead of, the command itself being executed. A
common case is too many arguments to the command. See the manual page
for your shell for details.
Unless otherwise noted, commands described in this section accept options
and other arguments according to the following syntax:
name [options] [cmdargs]
where:
name The name of an executable file.
option -noargletter 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 Pathname (or other command argument) not beginning with -
or - by itself indicating the standard input.
SEE ALSO
getopt(1), exec(2), exit(2), wait(2), getopt(3C).
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.
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intro(1M) intro(1M)
BUGS
Regrettably, not all commands adhere to the aforementioned syntax.
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