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MAN(1)									MAN(1)

NAME
       man - find and display reference manual pages

SYNOPSIS
       man [-] [-adFlrt] [-M path] [-T macro-package] [-s section] name...

       man [-M path] -k keyword...

       man [-M path] -f file...

DESCRIPTION
       The  man	 command  displays  information from the reference manuals. It
       displays complete manual pages that you select  by  name,  or  one-line
       summaries selected either by keyword (-k), or by the name of an associ‐
       ated file (-f). If no manual page is located, man prints an error  mes‐
       sage.

   Source Format
       Reference  Manual  pages are marked up with either nroff (see nroff(1))
       or SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) tags (see sgml(5)).  The
       man  command  recognizes	 the  type  of	markup	and processes the file
       accordingly. The various source files are kept in separate  directories
       depending on the type of markup.

   Location of Manual Pages
       The online Reference Manual page directories are conventionally located
       in   /usr/share/man.   The   nroff   sources   are   located   in   the
       /usr/share/man/man*  directories.  The  SGML sources are located in the
       /usr/share/man/sman* directories. Each directory corresponds to a  sec‐
       tion  of	 the manual. Since these directories are optionally installed,
       they  might  not	 reside	 on  your  host.  You  might  have  to	 mount
       /usr/share/man from a host on which they do reside.

       If  there  are  preformatted,  up-to-date versions in the corresponding
       cat* or fmt* directories, man simply displays or prints those versions.
       If  the preformatted version of interest is out of date or missing, man
       reformats it prior to display and stores the  preformatted  version  if
       cat*  or fmt* is writable. The windex database is not updated. See cat‐
       man(1M). If directories for the preformatted versions are not provided,
       man  reformats  a  page	whenever it is requested. man uses a temporary
       file to store the formatted text during display.

       If the standard output is not a terminal, or if the `-' flag is	given,
       man  pipes  its	output through cat(1). Otherwise, man pipes its output
       through more(1) to handle paging and underlining on the screen.

OPTIONS
       The following options are supported:

       -a
			   Shows all manual pages  matching  name  within  the
			   MANPATH  search path. Manual pages are displayed in
			   the order found.

       -d
			   Debugs. Displays what a section-specifier evaluates
			   to,	method	used for searching, and paths searched
			   by man.

       -f file ...
			   man attempts to locate manual pages related to  any
			   of the given files. It strips the leading path name
			   components from each file, and then prints one-line
			   summaries  containing  the  resulting  basename  or
			   names.  This option also uses the windex database.

       -F
			   Forces man to search all directories	 specified  by
			   MANPATH  or	the man.cf file, rather than using the
			   windex lookup database. This option	is  useful  if
			   the database is not up to date and it has been made
			   the default behavior of the man command. The option
			   therefore  does not have to be invoked and is docu‐
			   mented here for reference only.

       -k keyword ...
			   Prints out one-line summaries from the windex data‐
			   base	 (table	 of  contents) that contain any of the
			   given keywords.  The	 windex	 database  is  created
			   using catman(1M).

       -l
			   Lists  all  manual pages found matching name within
			   the search path.

       -M path
			   Specifies  an  alternate  search  path  for	manual
			   pages.  path	 is a colon-separated list of directo‐
			   ries that contain manual page  directory  subtrees.
			   For	      example,	      if	path	    is
			   /usr/share/man:/usr/local/man,  man	searches   for
			   name	  in   the   standard	location,   and	  then
			   /usr/local/man.  When  used	with  the  -k  or   -f
			   options,  the  -M  option  must  appear first. Each
			   directory in the path is assumed to contain	subdi‐
			   rectories  of the form man* or sman* , one for each
			   section. This option overrides the MANPATH environ‐
			   ment variable.

       -r
			   Reformats the manual page, but does not display it.
			   This replaces the man - -t name combination.

       -s section ...
			   Specifies sections of the manual for man to search.
			   The	directories  searched  for name are limited to
			   those specified  by	section.   section  can	 be  a
			   numerical  digit,  perhaps  followed by one or more
			   letters to match the desired section of the manual,
			   for	example,  "3libucb".  Also,  section  can be a
			   word, for example, local, new, old, public. section
			   can also be a letter. To specify multiple sections,
			   separate each section with  a  comma.  This	option
			   overrides  the MANPATH environment variable and the
			   man.cf file. See Search Path below for an  explana‐
			   tion of how man conducts its search.

       -t
			   man	arranges  for the specified manual pages to be
			   troffed to a suitable  raster  output  device  (see
			   troff(1)).  If  both	 the - and -t flags are given,
			   man updates the troffed versions of each named name
			   (if necessary), but does not display them.

       -T macro-package
			   Formats  manual  pages  using  macro-package rather
			   than	 the   standard	  -man	 macros	  defined   in
			   /usr/share/lib/tmac/an. See Search Path under USAGE
			   for a complete explanation of  the  default	search
			   path order.

OPERANDS
       The following operand is supported:

       name
	       The name of a standard utility or a keyword.

USAGE
       The usage of man is described below:

   Manual Page Sections
       Entries in the reference manuals are organized into sections. A section
       name consists of a  major  section  name,  typically  a	single	digit,
       optionally  followed  by	 a subsection name, typically one or more let‐
       ters. An unadorned major section name, for example, "9", does  not  act
       as  an  abbreviation  for  the  subsections of that name, such as "9e",
       "9f", or "9s".  That is, each subsection must be searched separately by
       man  -s.	  Each	section	 contains descriptions apropos to a particular
       reference category, with subsections refining these  distinctions.  See
       the intro manual pages for an explanation of the classification used in
       this release.

   Search Path
       Before searching for a given name, man constructs a list	 of  candidate
       directories  and	 sections.  man	 searches  for name in the directories
       specified by the MANPATH environment variable.

       In the absence of MANPATH, man constructs its search  path  based  upon
       the  PATH  environment  variable, primarily by substituting man for the
       last component of the PATH element. Special  provisions	are  added  to
       account	for  unique  characteristics  of  directories  such  as /sbin,
       /usr/ucb, /usr/xpg4/bin, and others. If the file argument contains a  /
       character, the dirname portion of the argument is used in place of PATH
       elements to construct the search path.

       Within the manual page directories, man confines its search to the sec‐
       tions specified in the following order:

	   o	  sections specified on the command line with the -s option

	   o	  sections embedded in the MANPATH environment variable

	   o	  sections  specified  in  the	man.cf file for each directory
		  specified in the MANPATH environment variable

       If none of the above exist, man searches each directory in  the	manual
       page path, and displays the first matching manual page found.

       The man.cf file has the following format:

	 MANSECTS=section[,section]...

       Lines  beginning	 with `#' and blank lines are considered comments, and
       are ignored. Each directory specified in MANPATH can contain  a	manual
       page  configuration  file, specifying the default search order for that
       directory.

FORMATTING MANUAL PAGES
       Manual pages are marked up in nroff(1) or sgml(5). Nroff	 manual	 pages
       are  processed  by  nroff(1)  or	 troff(1) with the -man macro package.
       Please refer to man(5) for information  on  macro  usage.   SGML—tagged
       manual  pages are processed by an SGML parser and passed to the format‐
       ter.

   Preprocessing Nroff Manual Pages
       When formatting an nroff manual page, man examines the  first  line  to
       determine  whether it requires special processing. If the first line is
       a string of the form:

	 '\" X

       where X is separated from the `"' by a single SPACE and consists of any
       combination of characters in the following list, man pipes its input to
       troff(1) or nroff(1) through the corresponding preprocessors.

       e
	    eqn(1), or neqn for nroff

       r
	    refer(1)

       t
	    tbl(1)

       v
	    vgrind(1)

       If  eqn	or  neqn  is  invoked,	it  automatically   reads   the	  file
       /usr/pub/eqnchar	 (see  eqnchar(5)).  If nroff(1) is invoked, col(1) is
       automatically used.

   Referring to Other nroff Manual Pages
       If the first line of the nroff manual page is a	reference  to  another
       manual page entry fitting the pattern:

	 .so man*/sourcefile

       man  processes the indicated file in place of the current one. The ref‐
       erence must be expressed as a path name relative to  the	 root  of  the
       manual page directory subtree.

       When the second or any subsequent line starts with .so, man ignores it;
       troff(1) or nroff(1) processes the request in the usual manner.

   Processing SGML Manual Pages
       Manual pages are identified as being marked up in SGML by the  presence
       of  the	string	<!DOCTYPE.  If	the  file  also	 contains  the	string
       SHADOW_PAGE, the file refers to another manual page  for	 the  content.
       The  reference  is made with a file entity reference to the manual page
       that contains the text. This is similar to the .so  mechanism  used  in
       the nroff formatted man pages.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       See  environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
       that affect the execution of man: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE,  LC_MESSAGES,
       and NLSPATH.

       MANPATH
		  A colon-separated list of directories; each directory can be
		  followed by a comma-separated list of sections. If set,  its
		  value	 overrides  /usr/share/man  as	the  default directory
		  search path, and the man.cf  file  as	 the  default  section
		  search  path.	 The  -M and -s flags, in turn, override these
		  values.)

       PAGER
		  A program to use for interactively delivering	 man's	output
		  to the screen.  If not set, `more -s' is used. See more(1).

       TCAT
		  The  name  of	 the  program to use to display troffed manual
		  pages.

       TROFF
		  The name of the formatter to use when the -t flag is	given.
		  If not set, troff(1) is used.

EXAMPLES
       Example 1 Creating a PostScript Version of a man page

       The  following  example	creates the pipe(2) man page in postscript for
       csh, tcsh, ksh and sh users:

	      % env TCAT=/usr/lib/lp/postscript/dpost man -t -s 2 pipe > pipe.ps

       This is an alternative to using man -t, which sends the man page to the
       default printer, if the user wants a postscript file version of the man
       page.

       Example 2 Creating a Text Version of a man page

       The following example creates the pipe(2) man page in ascii text:

	 man pipe.2 | col -x -b > pipe.text

       This is an alternative to using man -t, which sends the man page to the
       default printer, if the user wants a text file version of the man page.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned:

       0
	     Successful completion.

       >0
	     An error occurred.

FILES
       /usr/share/man

	   Root of the standard manual page directory subtree

       /usr/share/man/man?/*

	   Unformatted nroff manual entries

       /usr/share/man/sman?/*

	   Unformatted SGML manual entries

       /usr/share/man/cat?/*

	   nroffed manual entries

       /usr/share/man/fmt?/*

	   troffed manual entries

       /usr/share/man/windex

	   Table of contents and keyword database

       /usr/share/lib/tmac/an

	   Standard -man macro package

       /usr/share/lib/sgml/locale/C/dtd/*

	   SGML document type definition files

       /usr/share/lib/sgml/locale/C/solbook/*

	   SGML style sheet and entity definitions directories

       /usr/share/lib/pub/eqnchar

	   Standard definitions for eqn and neqn

       man.cf

	   Default search order by section

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       ┌────────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
       │  ATTRIBUTE TYPE    │	ATTRIBUTE VALUE	  │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │CSI		    │ Enabled, see NOTES. │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability │ Committed		  │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │Standard	    │ See standards(5).	  │
       └────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘

SEE ALSO
       apropos(1),   cat(1),  col(1),  dpost(1),  eqn(1),  more(1),  nroff(1),
       refer(1),   tbl(1),   troff(1),	 vgrind(1),   whatis(1),   catman(1M),
       attributes(5), environ(5), eqnchar(5), man(5), sgml(5), standards(5)

NOTES
       The -f and -k options use the windex database, which is created by cat‐
       man(1M).

       The man command is CSI-capable. However, some utilities invoked by  the
       man  command, namely, troff, eqn, neqn, refer, tbl, and vgrind, are not
       verified to be CSI-capable. Because of this, the man command  with  the
       -t  option can not handle non-EUC data.	Also, using the man command to
       display man pages that require special processing  through  eqn,	 neqn,
       refer, tbl, or vgrind can not be CSI-capable.

BUGS
       The  manual  is supposed to be reproducible either on a phototypesetter
       or on an ASCII terminal. However, on a terminal some information (indi‐
       cated by font changes, for instance) is lost.

       Some dumb terminals cannot process the vertical motions produced by the
       e (see eqn(1)) preprocessing flag. To prevent garbled output  on	 these
       terminals,  when	 you  use  e, also use t, to invoke col(1) implicitly.
       This workaround has the disadvantage of	eliminating  superscripts  and
       subscripts,  even  on  those terminals that can display them. Control-q
       clears a terminal that gets confused by eqn(1) output.

				  May 8, 2008				MAN(1)
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