man

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NAME

       man - format and display the on-line manual pages
       manpath - determine user's search path for man pages


SYNOPSIS

       man  [-adfhktwW]  [-m system] [-p string] [-C config_file]
       [-M path] [-P pager] [-S section_list] [section] name  ...


DESCRIPTION

       man  formats  and displays the on-line manual pages.  This
       version knows about  the  MANPATH  and  PAGER  environment
       variables, so you can have your own set(s) of personal man
       pages and choose whatever program you like to display  the
       formatted  pages.  If section is specified, man only looks
       in that section of the manual.  You may also  specify  the
       order to search the sections for entries and which prepro-
       cessors to run  on  the  source  files  via  command  line
       options  or  environment  variables.  If name contains a /
       then it is first tried as a filename, so that you  can  do
       man ./foo.5 or even man /cd/foo/bar.1.gz.


OPTIONS

       -C  config_file
              Specify  the man.config file to use; the default is
              /usr/lib/man.config. (See man.config(5).)

       -M  path
              Specify the list of directories to  seach  for  man
              pages.  If no such option is given, the environment
              variable MANPATH is used. If  no  such  environment
              variable  is  found,  the  default list is found by
              consulting /usr/lib/man.config. An empty  substring
              of MANPATH denotes the default list.

       -P  pager
              Specify  which  pager to use.  By default, man uses
              /usr/bin/less -is This option overrides  the  PAGER
              environment variable.

       -S  section_list
              List  is  a colon separated list of manual sections
              to search.  This option overrides the MANSECT envi-
              ronment variable.

       -a     By  default,  man  will  exit  after displaying the
              first manual page  it  finds.   Using  this  option
              forces  man  to  display  all the manual pages that
              match name, not just the first.

       -c     Reformat the source man page, even when  an  up-to-
              date  cat  page  exists.  This can be meaningful if
              the cat page was formatted for a screen with a dif-
              ferent number of columns.

       -d     Don't  actually display the man pages, but do print
              gobs of debugging information.

       -D     Both display and print debugging info.

       -f     Equivalent to whatis.

       -h     Print a one line help message and exit.

       -k     Equivalent to apropos.

       -m  system
              Specify an alternate set of  man  pages  to  search
              based on the system name given.

       -p  string
              Specify the sequence of preprocessors to run before
              nroff or troff.  Not all installations will have  a
              full  set of preprocessors.  Some of the preproces-
              sors and the letters used to  designate  them  are:
              eqn  (e),  grap  (g), pic (p), tbl (t), vgrind (v),
              refer (r).  This option  overrides  the  MANROFFSEQ
              environment variable.

       -t     Use  /usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc to format the man-
              ual page, passing the output to stdout.  The output
              from  /usr/bin/groff  -Tps  -mandoc  may need to be
              passed through some filter or another before  being
              printed.

       -w or --path
              Don't  actually display the man pages, but do print
              the location(s) of the files that would be  format-
              ted  or displayed. If no argument is given: display
              (on  stdout)  the  list  of  directories  that   is
              searched by man for man pages. If manpath is a link
              to  man,  then  "manpath"  is  equivalent  to  "man
              --path".

       -W     Like -w, but print file names one per line, without
              additional information.  This is  useful  in  shell
              commands like man -aW man | xargs ls -l



CAT PAGES

       Man  will try to save the formatted man pages, in order to
       save formatting time next time  these  pages  are  needed.
       Traditionally, formatted versions of pages in DIR/manX are
       saved in DIR/catX, but other mappings from man dir to  cat
       dir can be specified in /usr/lib/man.config.  No cat pages
       are saved when the required cat directory does not  exist.

       It  is  possible  to  make man suid to a user man. Then,
              if a cat directory
              has owner man and mode 0755 (only writable by man),
              and the cat files have owner man and mode  0644  or
              0444  (only  writable  by  man,  or not writable at
              all), no ordinary user can change the cat pages  or
              put other files in the cat directory. If man is not
              made suid, then a cat directory  should  have  mode
              0777 if all users should be able to leave cat pages
              there.

       The option -c forces reformatting a page, even if  a
              recent  cat page exists.




ENVIRONMENT

       MANPATH
              If MANPATH is set, its value is used as the path to
              search for manual pages.

       MANROFFSEQ
              If  MANROFFSEQ  is set, its value is used to deter-
              mine the set of preprocessors  run  before  running
              nroff  or  troff.   By  default,  pages  are passed
              through the table preprocessor before nroff.

       MANSECT
              If MANSECT is set, its value is used  to  determine
              which manual sections to search.

       PAGER  If  PAGER  is set, its value is used as the name of
              the program to use to display  the  man  page.   By
              default, /usr/bin/less -is is used.

       LANG   If  LANG  is set, its value defines the name of the
              subdirectory where man first looks for  man  pages.
              Thus,  the  command  `LANG=dk man 1 foo' will cause
              man   to   look   for   the   foo   man   page   in
              .../dk/man1/foo.1,  and  if  it  cannot find such a
              file, then in .../man1/foo.1, where ... is a direc-
              tory on the search path.

       NLSPATH, LC_MESSAGES, LANG
              The  environment  variables NLSPATH and LC_MESSAGES
              (or LANG when the latter does  not  exist)  play  a
              role  in  locating  the  message catalog.  (But the
              English messages are compiled in, and  for  English
              no  catalog  is required.)  Note that programs like
              col(1) called by man also use e.g. LC_CTYPE.

       PATH   PATH is used in the  construction  of  the  default
              search path for man pages.

       SYSTEM SYSTEM  is used to get the default alternate system
              name (for use with the -m option).


SEE ALSO

       apropos(1), whatis(1), less(1), groff(1).


BUGS

       The -t option  only  works  if  a  troff-like  program  is
       installed.
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