man(1) man(1)
NAME [Toc] [Back]
man - find manual information by keywords; print out a manual entry
SYNOPSIS [Toc] [Back]
man [-M path] -k keyword...
man [-M path] -f file...
man [-] [-M path] [-T macro-package] [section[subsection]]
entry_name...
DESCRIPTION [Toc] [Back]
man accesses information from the HP-UX manual pages. It can be used
to:
+ List all manual entries whose one-line description contains
any of a specified set of keywords.
+ Display or print one-line descriptions of entries specified by
name.
+ Search on-line manual directories by entry name and display or
print the specified entry or entries.
+ Search a specified on-line manual section (directory) and
display or print the specified entry or entries in that
section.
Searching for Entry Names by Keyword (first form) [Toc] [Back]
The first form above searches the one-line descriptions of individual
entries for specified keywords. Arguments are as follows:
-k keyword -k followed by one or more keywords causes man to
print the one-line description of each manual
entry whose one-line description contains text
matching one or more of the specified keywords
(similar to the behavior of grep(1)). Keywords
are separated by blanks (space or tab).
Before this option can be used, file
/usr/share/lib/whatis must exist.
/usr/share/lib/whatis can be created by running
catman(1M).
Obtaining One-Line Description of an Entry (second form) [Toc] [Back]
The second form above finds and displays or prints the one-line
descriptions of specified individual entries. Arguments are as
follows:
-f file -f followed by one or more file names causes man
to print the one-line description of each manual
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entry found whose name matches file. When
specifying two or more files, file arguments are
separated by blanks (space or tab). If entry
names matching file exist in two or more sections,
the one-line description of each matched file name
is output.
Before this option can be used, file
/usr/share/lib/whatis must exist.
/usr/share/lib/whatis can be created by running
catman(1M).
Viewing Individual Manual Entries (third form) [Toc] [Back]
The third form shown above is used for viewing one or more individual
manual entries. man in this form recognizes the following arguments:
- (optional) When the - argument is present, man
sends the formatted manual entry directly to
standard output without processing it through the
output filter specified by the PAGER environment
variable.
-M path Change the search path for manual pages. path is
a colon-separated list of directories that contain
manual page directory subtrees. When used with
the -k or -f options, the -M option must appear
first.
-T macro-package
man uses macro-package rather than the standard
-man macros defined in /usr/share/lib/tmac/tmac.an
for formatting manual pages.
When specifying the -T option to man , the full
path must be given. For example:
man -T /usr/share/lib/tmac/tmac.s ls
section[subsection]
(optional) Search in the specified section for the
given entry_name. section specifies a single
section number or one of the words local, new,
old, or public to search for one or more of the
entries indicated. section corresponds to the
section number where the entry appears in the HP-
UX Reference. It can be followed by an optional
uppercase/lowercase subsection identifier such as
3C which would indicate a library routine in
Section 3. 3, 3c, and 3C are interpreted as
equivalent, since all Section 3 manual entries are
stored in the same or in related directories (such
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as /usr/share/man/man3.Z and /usr/share/man/man3.
However, if an entry is in Section 1M, section
must be specified as 1m or 1M.
entry_name Search for a specific entry name where entry_name
is the name of the manual entry without its
section-number suffix. Except for names exceeding
11 characters, entry_name is identical to the name
of the manual entry as listed at the top of each
page, or is the same as one of the keywords in the
left-hand part of the one-line description in the
corresponding manual entry.
If entry_name is longer than 11 characters, man
first searches for the full-length entry_name. If
not found, entry_name is truncated to 11
characters to ensure that there is room for the
section suffix in 14-character source file names.
Files in the /usr/share/man/* directories are
normally installed with the filename truncated to
11 characters where necessary so that the name
plus a three-character section suffix does not
exceed the maximum filename length on short
filename systems.
If section is not specified (see previous argument
description), man searches all sections of the
manual in order: man1, man2, man1M, man3, man4,
man5, man6, man7, man8, man9, manlocal, mannew,
manold, then manpublic; and printing the first
matching entry it encounters.
If there is more than one manual entry among the
sections, the first manual entry is displayed.
For example, man intro will display only intro(1).
man 4 intro will display intro(4).
If the standard output is a teletype, and if the - flag is not given,
man pipes its output through more (see more(1)), with the -s option,
to eliminate multiple blank lines and stop after each screenful. This
default behavior can be changed by setting the PAGER variable in the
user's environment. The value of PAGER must be a string that names an
output filter (such as pg(1)), along with the desired options.
File Search Conventions [Toc] [Back]
man searches in several directories, as appropriate, for the specified
manual entry. The search continues until either the entry is found or
all candidate directories are searched. The first three directories
searched, in order, are: /usr/share/man, /usr/contrib/man, and
/usr/local/man.
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The MANPATH environment variable can be used to specify directories to
be searched, and, if set, overrides the default paths given above.
Upon logging in, /etc/profile ( or /etc/csh.login ) sets the MANPATH
environment variable to default settings. If the file /etc/MANPATH
exists, the default settings are taken from this file. The MANPATH
variable follows the same form as the PATH variable (see environ(5)).
Within each of these directories, man searches in the cat*.Z
subdirectories, the man*.Z subdirectories, the cat* subdirectories,
and the man* subdirectories. man*.Z and man* directories contain
nroff(1)-compatible source text for the entries. cat*.Z and cat*
directories contain the formatted versions of the entries. man*.Z and
cat.Z directories contain entries in compressed form. Files in these
directories are uncompressed by uncompress (see compress(1)) before
being processed for printing or display.
If the LANG environment variable is set to any valid language name
defined by lang(5), and the MANPATH variable is not set, or is set to
the default directories, man searches in three additional directories
for the manual entry before searching in /usr/share/man. First, man
searches in /usr/share/man/$LANG, then in /usr/contrib/man/$LANG, then
in /usr/local/man/$LANG. Thus, native-language manual entries are
displayed if they are present and installed properly in the system.
If the MANPATH environment variable is set to anything other than the
default, the above directories with $LANG as part of the path are not
automatically searched. All directories must be explicitly given in
MANPATH. The %L, %l, %t, and %c specifiers can be used as path
components to cause locale-specific directories to be searched. See
environ(5) for a complete description of MANPATH.
man uses the most recent version that it finds in the subdirectories
searched. If the most recent version is in:
man*.Z The entry is uncompressed, formatted, and
displayed. If the cat*.Z directory exists, the
formatted entry is compressed and installed in
cat*.Z. If the cat* directory exists, the
formatted entry is installed in cat*.
cat*.Z The entry is uncompressed and displayed.
man* The entry is formatted, and displayed. If the
cat*.Z directory exists, it is compressed, and
installed in cat*.Z. If the cat* directory
exists, the formatted entry is installed in cat*.
cat* The entry is displayed.
If only the cat* or cat*.Z subdirectory is present and/or nroff(1) is
not installed, only entries that are already formatted can be
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displayed.
If you choose to have the formatted entries on your system, run
catman(1M) with the default, which creates the cat*.Z directories
(after removing any cat* directories that exist on your system) and
also creates the file /usr/share/lib/whatis used by the man -k option.
If you choose to have the cat* directories, it would be space-saving
to remove any cat*.Z directories that may exist on your system.
Beware that man updates both directories (cat* and cat*.Z) if they
both exist.
Special Manual Entries [Toc] [Back]
Some situations may require creation of manual entries for local use
or distribution by third-party software suppliers. The manual
formatting macros have been structured to redefine page footers so
that manual entries not originating from Hewlett-Packard Company do
not show the HP name in the footer. For more information about this
change and a description of the manual formatting macros used with
nroff or troff, see man(5).
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES [Toc] [Back]
Environment Variables
LANG determines the language in which messages are displayed. LANG is
also used to determine the search path (as described above).
If LANG is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of
"C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG for messages, but not for
the search path.
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, man
behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See
environ(5).
MANPATH, if set, gives a list of directories to be searched for the
given entry, replacing the default paths.
PAGER, if set, defines an output filter to be used instead of more(1)
to paginate output.
International Code Set Support [Toc] [Back]
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
EXAMPLES [Toc] [Back]
List the manual entries that contain the word grep in their respective
one-line description (NAME) lines:
man -k grep
The output is:
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grep, egrep, fgrep (1) - search a file for a pattern
zgrep(1) - search possibly compressed files for a
regular expression
Print the one-line description of the grep(1) manual entry:
man -f grep
Print the entire grep(1) manual entry:
man grep
Set a search path that includes a path directly below the current
directory. The manual entry, mypage is assumed to exist in the
directory ./man1 (or ./man1.Z, cat1, or cat1.Z).
MANPATH=.:/usr/share/man:/usr/contrib/man:/usr/local/man
export MANPATH
man mypage
Display the manual entry for id(1), with the output piped through pg
-c:
PAGER="pg -c"
export PAGER
man id
List all printed manuals available for the current system (see
manuals(5):
man manuals
Display intro(4) and intro(3):
man 4 intro
man 3 intro
WARNINGS [Toc] [Back]
Manual entries are structured such that they can be printed on a
phototypesetter, conventional line printer, and screen display
devices. However, due to line printer and display device limitations,
some information may be lost in certain situations.
FILES [Toc] [Back]
/usr/share/lib/whatis keyword database
/usr/share/man/cat*[.Z]/* formatted manual
entries [compressed]
/usr/share/man/man*[.Z]/* raw (nroff(1) source)
manual entries
[compressed]
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/usr/contrib/man/cat*[.Z]/*
/usr/contrib/man/man*[.Z]/*
/usr/local/man/cat*[.Z]/*
/usr/local/man/man*[.Z]/*
/usr/share/man/$LANG/cat*[.Z]/* formatted nativelanguage
manual
entries [compressed]
/usr/share/man/$LANG/man*[.Z]/* raw (nroff(1) source)
native-language manual
entries [compressed]
/usr/contrib/man/$LANG/cat*[.Z]/*
/usr/contrib/man/$LANG/man*[.Z]/*
/usr/local/man/$LANG/cat*[.Z]/*
/usr/local/man/$LANG/man*[.Z]/*
SEE ALSO [Toc] [Back]
col(1), compress(1), grep(1), more(1), catman(1M), fixman(1M),
environ(5), intro(1), intro(1M), intro(2), intro(3), intro(4),
intro(5), intro(7), intro(9), introduction(9), man(5), manuals(5).
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE [Toc] [Back]
man: XPG4
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