MAN(1)                  System General Commands Manual                  MAN(1)

NAME
     man - display the on-line manual pages

SYNOPSIS
     man [-achw] [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [-S subsection] [-s section]
         [section] name [...]
     man -f command
     man -k keyword

DESCRIPTION
     The man utility displays the manual pages entitled name.

     The options are as follows:

     -a      Display all of the manual pages for a specified section and name
             combination.  (Normally, only the first manual page found is dis-
             played.)

     -C file
             Use the specified file instead of the default configuration file.
             This permits users to configure their own manual environment.
             See man.conf(5) for a description of the contents of this file.

     -c      Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using
             more(1) to paginate it.  This is done by default if the standard
             output is not a terminal device.

     -f command
             Locate man pages matching the command in much the same way
             whatis(1) works.

     -h      Display only the ``SYNOPSIS'' lines of the requested manual
             pages.

     -k keyword
             Locate man pages matching keyword in much the same way as
             apropos(1) works (in fact, it runs apropos(1)).  This can be used
             to find which man page applies to a particular subsystem you are
             interested in.  For instance:

                   $ man -k shell

             will list all man pages which contain keyword in the ``NAME''
             line of the man page; in this case a list much like this:

             chsh (1)     - change a user's login shell
             which (1)    - shows the full path of (shell) commands.
             zsh  (1)     - the Z shell
             ksh (1)      - public domain Korn shell
             loginenv (1) - create a new login shell with login environment
             onintr (1)   - determines how the shell responds to an interrupts
             rsh (1)      - remote shell
             rshd (1)     - remote shell server
             set (1)      - shell built-in to set and clear shell options
             settc (1)    - set termcap for shell
             sh (1)       - command interpreter (shell)
             suspend (1)  - stops the shell
             system() (3) - pass a command to the shell
             tcsh (1)     - C shell with file-name completion and command-line editing
             ...

     -M path
             Override the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (`:') separated
             list of directories.  This search path may also be set using the
             environment variable MANPATH.  The subdirectories to be searched,
             and their search order, are specified by the ``_subdir'' line in
             the man configuration file.

     -m path
             Augment the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (`:') separated
             list of directories.  These directories will be searched before
             the standard directories or the directories specified using the
             -M option or the MANPATH environment variable.  The subdirecto-
             ries to be searched, and their search order, are specified by the
             ``_subdir'' line in the man configuration file.

     -S subsection
             Specifies the machine-dependent subsection.  This overrides the
             MACHINE environment variable.  See the ENVIRONMENT section below.

     -s section
             Another way of specifying the section, for compatibility with man
             on other operating systems.

     -w      List the pathnames of the manual pages which man would display
             for the specified section and name combination.

     The optional section argument restricts the directories that man will
     search.  The currently available sections are:

           1    General commands.  (tools and utilities)
           1w   Tools and utilities.  (for Win32)
           2    System calls.
           3    Libraries.
           4    Devices.
           5    File formats.
           6    Games.
           7    Formating tools and miscellaneous.
           8    System maintenance and operation commands.
           n    Miscellaneous.

     The man configuration file (see man.conf(5)) specifies the possible
     section values, and their search order.  If only a single argument is
     specified, or if the first argument is not a valid section, man assumes
     that the argument is the name of a manual page to be displayed.  Gener-
     ally a manual page already built will be looked for first to save time
     and effort before resorting to building a manual page on the fly.

ENVIRONMENT
     MACHINE   As some manual pages are intended only for specific architec-
               tures, man searches any subdirectories, with the same name as
               the current architecture, in every directory which it searches.
               Machine specific areas are checked before general areas.  The
               current machine type may be overridden by setting the environ-
               ment variable MACHINE to the name of a specific architecture.

     MANPAGER  Any non-null value of the environment variable MANPAGER will be
               used instead of the standard pagination program, more(1).

     MANPATH   The standard search path used by man may be overridden by spec-
               ifying a path in the MANPATH environment variable.  The format
               of the path is a colon (`:') separated list of directories.
               The subdirectories to be searched, as well as their search
               order, are specified by the ``_subdir'' line in the man config-
               uration file.

     PAGER     Specifies the pagination program to use when MANPAGER is not
               defined.

FILES
     /etc/man.conf  default man configuration file

SEE ALSO
     apropos(1), catman(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), man.conf(5),

HISTORY
     A man command appeared in Version 3 AT&T UNIX.

BUGS
     The on-line manual pages are, by necessity, forgiving toward stupid dis-
     play devices, causing a few manual pages to be not as nicely formatted as
     their typeset counterparts.

Interix                         August 10, 2004                        Interix