Command Line

man

An interface to the on-line reference manuals

Location

$ whereis -b man
man: /usr/bin/man /usr/local/man /usr/share/man

Help

$ man --help
Usage: man [OPTION...] [SECTION] PAGE...

  -C, --config-file=FILE     use this user configuration file
  -d, --debug                emit debugging messages
  -D, --default              reset all options to their default values
      --warnings[=WARNINGS]  enable warnings from groff

 Main modes of operation:
  -f, --whatis               equivalent to whatis
  -k, --apropos              equivalent to apropos
  -K, --global-apropos       search for text in all pages
  -l, --local-file           interpret PAGE argument(s) as local filename(s)
  -w, --where, --path, --location
                             print physical location of man page(s)
  -W, --where-cat, --location-cat
                             print physical location of cat file(s)

  -c, --catman               used by catman to reformat out of date cat pages
  -R, --recode=ENCODING      output source page encoded in ENCODING

 Finding manual pages:
  -L, --locale=LOCALE        define the locale for this particular man search
  -m, --systems=SYSTEM       use manual pages from other systems
  -M, --manpath=PATH         set search path for manual pages to PATH

  -S, -s, --sections=LIST    use colon separated section list

  -e, --extension=EXTENSION  limit search to extension type EXTENSION

  -i, --ignore-case          look for pages case-insensitively (default)
  -I, --match-case           look for pages case-sensitively

      --regex                show all pages matching regex
      --wildcard             show all pages matching wildcard

      --names-only           make --regex and --wildcard match page names only,
                             not descriptions

  -a, --all                  find all matching manual pages
  -u, --update               force a cache consistency check

      --no-subpages          don't try subpages, e.g. 'man foo bar' => 'man
                             foo-bar'

 Controlling formatted output:
  -P, --pager=PAGER          use program PAGER to display output
  -r, --prompt=STRING        provide the `less' pager with a prompt

  -7, --ascii                display ASCII translation of certain latin1 chars
  -E, --encoding=ENCODING    use selected output encoding
      --no-hyphenation, --nh turn off hyphenation
      --no-justification,                              --nj   turn off justification
  -p, --preprocessor=STRING  STRING indicates which preprocessors to run:
                             e - [n]eqn, p - pic, t - tbl,
g - grap, r - refer, v - vgrind

  -t, --troff                use groff to format pages
  -T, --troff-device[=DEVICE]   use groff with selected device

  -H, --html[=BROWSER]       use www-browser or BROWSER to display HTML output
  -X, --gxditview[=RESOLUTION]   use groff and display through gxditview
                             (X11):
                             -X = -TX75, -X100 = -TX100, -X100-12 = -TX100-12
  -Z, --ditroff              use groff and force it to produce ditroff

  -?, --help                 give this help list
      --usage                give a short usage message
  -V, --version              print program version

Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are also mandatory or optional
for any corresponding short options.

Report bugs to [email protected].