Unix Man Pages

Overview

• Getting on-line help in Unix can be very frustrating.

• The Unix man command is used to get on-line help and documentation. Sure, it should be called help, but it has always been called man (short for "manual") and knowing this little secret is a first step toward entering the Guild.

• Not only does it provide on-line information on Unix commands, it also provides information on C functions (e.g., printf) in the standard libraries (e.g., stdio).

• There are two main forms to using man:
  • getting information on the command or function named X
  • finding out which commands or functions are associated with keyword X

• There is more to the man command -- do a "man man" if you're curious.

Information on command/function X

% man pine
...output...

% man printf
...output...

% man man
...output...

Information on command/function with keyword X

% man -k email
...output...

% man -k mail
...output...