NACSE - Unix: man the Manual Command

10.B: man -k 10: Getting Help 10: Getting Help Contents

§ 10.A: man the Manual Command

When you say

> man command

Unix searchs the manual pages it has stored on disk for a description of command. When a match is found, a rather complete purpose, syntax, and description of command is printed on the screen. For example, to learn more about the man command:

> man man

Unix should respond with something like:

NAME

man - Displays reference pages 


  
  
SYNOPSIS

 man [-] [-M|-P pathname] [-t] [ section[suffix]]
 title 

   man [-M | -P pathname] -k keyword 


  
  
DESCRIPTION


 The man command provides reference information on topics, such as 
commands, subroutines, and files.  The man command provides one-line 
descriptions of commands specified by name.  The man command also provides 
information on all commands whose descriptions contain a set of 
user-specified keywords.

Inevitably, sometimes you'll feel that man gives too much information, other times you'll feel like there is not enough. However, the example at the end of the man page often tell you what you need to know. In any case, it works for most every command and is perfectly convenient.

The thoughtful reader may be saying to herself, "a lot of good man is, how do you expect me to remember all those non English command names?" Here again, Unix's good nature comes through, and provides the man -k form to help (and discussed in the next section).

10.B: man -k 10: Getting Help 10: Getting Help Contents

Comments and questions to Dr. Elias N. Houstis at enh@cs.purdue.edu.