1 Executable programs or shell commands. 2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel). 3 Library calls (functions within program libraries). 4 Special files (usually found in /dev). 5 File formats and conventions eg /etc/passwd. 6 Games. 7 Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions). 8 System administration commands (usually only for root).
Search for prog, func, conf file:
$ man [<section>] <item>
Search by specific keywords:
$ man -k <keywords>
Viewing inside Emacs:
M-x man RET [<section>] <item> M-x man RET -k SPACE <keywords>
NAME - brief prog description SYNOPSIS (USAGE) - command line options in BNF DESCRIPTION - long prog description OPTIONS - long option descriptions ... misc sections ... EXAMPLES EXIT STATUS ENVIRONMENT AVAILABILITY - whare search source, where home page FILES - list of files that has effect on program working AUTHORS COPYRIGHT SEE ALSO BUGS - know issue, how report bug HISTORY
TODO Bolt by print char, back one char and print same char. Underscore by printing undescore, back one char and print char.
To preview local man page:
$ groff -man -Tascii foo.1 # 7-bit char
$ groff -man -Tlatin1 foo.1 # 8-bit char
$ groff -man -Tlatin1 foo.1 | less
$ groff -a -mandoc -Tlatin1 e.1
$ groff -man -Tutf8 foo.1
$ man ./foo.1 # if slashes in path - use file
$ mkdir man1
$ cp foo.1 man1
$ man -M . 1 foo # without slashes search in MANPATH item
# and add /man1 to each item
Plain text:
$ man foo | col -b >.foo.txt
PostScript:
$ groff -Tps foo >foo.ps
DVI:
$ groff -Tdvi foo >foo.dvi