MAN(1-SysV) RISC/os Reference Manual MAN(1-SysV)
NAME
man - find and print manual information
SYNOPSIS
[/usr/bin/]man [ - ] [ -[acdntwBV] ] [ -Tterm ] [ -12 ] [
-[PM] path ]
[ section ] [ -S systype ] name ...
man -k keyword ...
man -f file ...
DESCRIPTION
man looks for manual pages in a base directory, which
defaults to /usr/man, and prints them out using a pager.
By default, the manual page is filtered by col(1), and by
more(1), with the -s option (if the output is a terminal, as
determined by isatty see ttyname(3C)), or cat(1) (if the
output is not a terminal) is used as the pager. The use of
more may be overridden by the PAGER environment variable,
which may in turn be overridden by the MANPAGER environment
variable. If MANPAGER variable is set, its contents are
used as is. If the PAGER variable is used, and the name
supplied ends with the word ``more'' or the word ``page'',
the options -f and -s are added, and the output is filtered
by ul(1). If it ends with the word ``less'', the option -s
is added, and output is not filtered by ul. If the value
ends with any other word, it is used unchanged.
If there are multiple manual pages that match a given name,
all matching files are printed (unless the -B option is set
and the -a option is not set), but each is only printed
once.
If more than one manual page is printed, the message
[Hit return for next manual page, q to quit]
is printed. At this point, the user may type return to see
the next manual page, or may type a word beginning with a
`q' or `Q' to quit.
Command lines to format text with nroff(1) or display text
with the pager are executed using the user's selected shell
(the value of the SHELL environment variable, or sh(1) if
the variable is not set).
OPTIONS
section Look for the manual page in the specified section
number (1-8) or section name (local, new, old, or
public) only. A section number may be followed by
a single letter classifier (for instance, 1g,
indicating a graphics program in section 1). If
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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.
-B Search 4.3 BSD-compatible manual pages before Sys-
tem V-compatible manual pages, and default to
printing just the first matching manual page.
-M path, -P path
Set the manual search path to path. The default
path is /usr/man, unless overridden by the value
of the MANPATH environment variable. (The
expected format of the value of the MANPATH vari-
able is the same as that of the PATH variable,
namely a list of directory paths separated by ":"
characters.)
-Tterm Set the terminal type to the named type. The
default terminal type is the value of the TERM
environment variable.
-V Search System V-compatible manual pages before 4.3
BSD-compatible manual pages, and defaults to
printing all matching manual pages. This option
is set by default by /usr/bin/man.
-a Print all matching manual pages. This is the
default for /usr/bin/man.
-S systype
This option indicates which order to search manual
pages in. It overrides the order implied by the
-B or -V options, but does not affect whether man
stops after finding a match or finds all possible
matches. The currently supported arguments for
systype are: bsd43 to search the 4.3 BSD manual
pages first, sysv to search the System V manual
pages first, and posix to search the POSIX manual
pages first. If a match is not found in the
specified system type, then the remaining system
types are searched in an unspecified order.
-c Run each manual page through the col(1) postpro-
cessor. This option is present for upward compa-
tibility, but is now redundant, since all manual
pages are always filtered by col(1).
-d Display the files in the current directory, which
are included in the name ... list, as manual
pages. If the files are manual source files, they
will be formatted with nroff(1) or troff(1), as
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appropriate, before printing.
-f Invoke whatis(1) with the arguments supplied.
-k Invoke apropos(1) with the arguments supplied.
-n, -w Print just the full path names of the matching
manual page files, instead of the contents of the
files. These will be relative to the base search
directory (usually /usr/man).
-t Print the manual page using some kind of troff
command. It first tries ``mantroff -man'', and
then ``vtroff -man'' if the first command cannot
be found. (Your system administrator can set up a
``mantroff'' command or link, or you can set up
one yourself somewhere in your execution path,
such as in your personal bin directory.)
-12 Causes the special 12 lines/inch version of the
given terminal type to be used, if available.
SEE ALSO
apropos(1), col(1), less(1), man(1-BSD), more(1), ul(1),
whatis(1).
ERRORS
man -k may return references to manual pages that are part
of optional software packages not installed on your system.
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