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man

Format and display the on-line manual pages

Overview

Displays the manual page for a given command. The manual pages are a standard source of documentation for Linux commands and utilities.

Syntax

man [OPTION]... [SECTION] PAGE...

Common Options

[SECTION] NAME

Specify the section of the manual and the name of the page (e.g., `man 1 ls`, `man 5 passwd`). Common sections: 1 (commands), 2 (system calls), 3 (library calls), 4 (special files), 5 (file formats), 6 (games), 7 (misc), 8 (admin commands).

-k KEYWORD, --apropos=KEYWORD

Search for KEYWORD in all manual page names and descriptions (same as `apropos`).

-f COMMAND, --whatis=COMMAND

Display a short description from the manual page, if available (same as `whatis`).

-w, --where, --path

Print the location(s) of the manual page(s) instead of displaying them.

-a, --all

Display all matching manual pages in sequence, not just the first one.

-K STRING

Search for STRING in the full text of all manual pages (can be slow).

Examples

$ man ls

Displays the manual page for the `ls` command.

$ man 5 passwd

Displays the manual page for the `passwd` file format from section 5.

$ man -k printf

Searches for "printf" in manual page names and descriptions (like `apropos printf`).

$ man -f ls

Displays a short "whatis" description of `ls`.

$ man -aw cron

Prints the paths to all manual pages related to `cron`.

$ man man

Displays the manual page for the `man` command itself.

manualhelpdocumentationman pagemaninfo