xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man1/man.1 (revision bbf21555)

.\"
.\" The Berkeley software License Agreement specifies the terms and conditions
.\" for redistribution.
.\"
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
.\" Copyright (c) 2008, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
.\" Copyright 2014 Garrett D'Amore <garrett@damore.org>
.\" Copyright 2016 Nexenta Systems, Inc.
.\"
.Dd May 13, 2017
.Dt MAN 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm man
.Nd find and display reference manual pages
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl
.Op Fl adFlrt
.Op Fl T Ar macro-package
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl s Ar section
.Ar name ...
.Nm
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl s Ar section
.Fl k
.Ar keyword
.Ar ...
.Nm
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl s Ar section
.Fl f
.Ar
.Nm
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Fl w
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
command displays information from the reference manuals.
It displays complete manual pages that you select by
.Ar name ,
or one-line summaries selected either by
.Ar keyword
.Pq Fl k ,
or by the name of an associated file
.Pq Fl f .
If no manual page is located,
.Nm
prints an error message.
.Ss "Source Format"
Reference Manual pages are marked up with either
.Xr man 7 ,
or
.Xr mdoc 7
language tags.
The
.Nm
command recognizes the type of markup and
processes the file accordingly.
.
.Ss "Location of Manual Pages"
.
The online Reference Manual page directories are conventionally located in
.Pa /usr/share/man .
Each directory corresponds to a
section of the manual.
Since these directories are optionally installed, they might not reside on your
host.
You might have to mount
.Pa /usr/share/man
from a host on which they do reside.
The
.Nm
command reformats a page whenever it is requested.
.Pp
If the standard output is not a terminal, or if the
.Fl
flag is given,
.Nm
pipes its output through
.Xr cat 1 .
Otherwise,
.Nm
pipes its output through a pager such as
.Xr more 1
to handle paging and underlining on the screen.
.Sh OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl a
Shows all manual pages matching
.Ar name
within the
.Ev MANPATH
search path.
Manual pages are displayed in the order found.
.It Fl d
Debugs.
Displays what a section-specifier evaluates to, method used for searching, and
paths searched by
.Nm .
.It Fl f Ar file ...
Attempts to locate manual pages related to any of the given
.Ar file
names.
It strips the leading path name components from each
.Ar file ,
and then prints one-line summaries containing the resulting basename or names.
This option also uses the
.Pa whatis
database.
.It Fl F
This option is present for backwards compatibility and is documented
here for reference only.
It performs no function.
.It Fl k Ar keyword ...
Prints out one-line summaries from the
.Pa whatis
database (table of contents) that contain any of the given
.Ar keyword .
The
.Pa whatis
database is created using the
.Fl w
option.
.It Fl l
Lists all manual pages found matching
.Ar name
within the search path.
.It Fl M Ar path
Specifies an alternate search path for manual pages.
The
.Ar path
is a colon-separated list of directories that contain manual page directory
subtrees.
For example, if
.Ar path
is
.Pa /usr/share/man:/usr/local/man ,
.Nm
searches for
.Ar name
in the standard location, and then
.Pa /usr/local/man .
When used with the
.Fl k ,
.Fl f ,
or
.Fl w
options, the
.Fl M
option must appear first.
Each directory in the
.Ar path
is assumed to contain subdirectories of the form
.Pa man* ,
one for each section.
This option overrides the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable.
.It Fl r
Reformats the manual page, checking for formatting errors, but does not
display it.
.It Fl s Ar section
Specifies sections of the manual for
.Nm
to search.
The directories searched for
.Ar name
are limited to those specified by
.Ar section .
.Ar section
can be a numerical digit, perhaps followed by one or more letters
to match the desired section of the manual, for example,
.Li "3head".
Also,
.Ar section
can be a word, for example,
.Li local ,
.Li new ,
.Li old ,
.Li public .
.Ar section
can also be a letter.
To specify multiple sections, separate each section with a comma.
This option overrides the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable and the
.Pa man.cf
file.
See
.Sx Search Path
below for an explanation of how
.Nm
conducts its search.
.It Fl t
Arranges for the specified manual pages to be sent to the default
printer as PostScript.
.It Fl T Ar macro-package
This option is present for backwards compatibility and is documented
here for reference only.
It performs no function.
.It Fl w
Updates the
.Nm whatis
database.
.El
.Sh OPERANDS
The following operand is supported:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Ar name
The name of a standard utility or a keyword.
.El
.Sh USAGE
The usage of
.Nm
is described below:
.
.Ss "Manual Page Sections"
.
Entries in the reference manuals are organized into
.Em sections .
A section
name consists of a major section name, typically a single digit, optionally
followed by a subsection name, typically one or more letters.
An unadorned major section name, for example,
.Qq 9 ,
does not act as an abbreviation for
the subsections of that name, such as
.Qq 9e ,
.Qq 9f ,
or
.Qq 9s .
That is, each subsection must be searched separately by
.Nm
.Fl s .
Each section contains descriptions apropos to a particular reference category,
with subsections refining these distinctions.
See the
.Em intro
manual pages for an explanation of the classification used in this release.
.
.Ss "Search Path"
.
Before searching for a given
.Ar name ,
.Nm
constructs a list of candidate directories and sections.
It searches for
.Ar name
in the directories specified by the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable.
.Lp
In the absence of
.Ev MANPATH ,
.Nm
constructs its search path based upon the
.Ev PATH
environment variable, primarily by substituting
.Li man
for the last component of the
.Ev PATH
element.
Special provisions are added to account for unique characteristics of
directories such as
.Pa /sbin ,
.Pa /usr/ucb ,
.Pa /usr/xpg4/bin ,
and others.
If the file argument contains a
.Qq /
character, the
.Em dirname
portion of the argument is used in place of
.Ev PATH
elements to construct the search path.
.Lp
Within the manual page directories,
.Nm
confines its search to the
sections specified in the following order:
.Bl -bullet
.It
.Ar sections
specified on the command line with the
.Fl s
option
.It
.Ar sections
embedded in the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable
.It
.Ar sections
specified in the
.Pa man.cf
file for each directory specified in the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable
.El
If none of the above exist,
.Nm
searches each directory in the manual
page path, and displays the first matching manual page found.
.Lp
The
.Pa man.cf
file has the following format:
.Lp
.Dl Pf MANSECTS= Ar section Ns Oo , Ns Ar section Oc Ns ...
.Lp
Lines beginning with
.Sq Li #
and blank lines are considered comments, and are
ignored.
Each directory specified in
.Ev MANPATH
can contain a manual page
configuration file, specifying the default search order for that directory.
.Sh "Referring to Other Manual Pages"
If the first line of the manual page is a reference to another manual
page entry fitting the pattern:
.Lp
.Dl \&.so man*/ Ns Em sourcefile
.Lp
.Nm
processes the indicated file in place of the current one.
The reference must be expressed as a path name relative to the root of the
manual page directory subtree.
.Lp
When the second or any subsequent line starts with
.Sy \&.so ,
.Nm
ignores it;
.Xr troff 1
or
.Xr nroff 1
processes the request in the usual manner.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See
.Xr environ 7
for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of
.Nm man :
.Ev LANG ,
.Ev LC_ALL ,
.Ev LC_CTYPE ,
.Ev LC_MESSAGES ,
and
.Ev NLSPATH .
.Bl -tag -width MANWIDTH
.It Ev MANPATH
A colon-separated list of directories; each directory can be followed by a
comma-separated list of sections.
If set, its value overrides
.Pa /usr/share/man
as the default directory search path, and the
.Pa man.cf
file as the default section search path.
The
.Fl M
and
.Fl s
flags, in turn, override these values.
.It Ev MANWIDTH
Width of the output.
If set to the special value
.Qq Sy TTY
.Po or
.Qq Sy tty
.Pc ,
and output is to terminal, auto-detect terminal width.
.It Ev PAGER
A program to use for interactively delivering
output to the screen.
If not set,
.Sq Nm more Fl s
is used.
See
.Xr more 1 .
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Pa /usr/share/man
Root of the standard manual page directory subtree
.It Pa /usr/share/man/man?/*
Unformatted manual entries
.It Pa /usr/share/man/whatis
Table of contents and keyword database
.It Pa man.cf
Default search order by section
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std man
.Sh EXAMPLES
.
.Ss Example 1: Creating a PostScript Version of a man page
.
The following example spools the
.Xr pipe 2
man page in PostScript to the default printer:
.Pp
.Dl % man -t -s 2 pipe
.Pp
Note that
.Xr mandoc 1
can be used to obtain the PostScript content directly.
.Ss Example 2: Creating a Text Version of a man page
The following example creates the
.Xr pipe 2
man page in ASCII text:
.Pp
.Dl % man pipe.2 | col -x -b > pipe.text
.Sh CODE SET INDEPENDENCE
Enabled.
.Sh INTERFACE STABILITY
.Sy Committed .
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr cat 1 ,
.Xr col 1 ,
.Xr mandoc 1 ,
.Xr more 1 ,
.Xr whatis 1 ,
.Xr environ 7 ,
.Xr man 7 ,
.Xr mdoc 7
.Sh NOTES
The
.Fl f
and
.Fl k
options use the
.Nm whatis
database, which is
created with the
.Fl w
option.
.Sh BUGS
The manual is supposed to be reproducible either on a phototypesetter or on an
ASCII terminal.
However, on a terminal some information (indicated by font changes, for
instance) is lost.