Appendix-How to Use the Man (Manual) Pages


Overview

In this appendix, you will learn about the ultimate UNIX reference material, the man (manual) pages. UNIX manual pages are the ultimate reference for how UNIX commands work. They succinctly present a wealth of information about commands using a particular format. Consequently every serious UNIX user needs to know how to use manual pages. This appendix teaches you how to use manual pages and describes the information you can obtain by reading them. The manual pages for UNIX commands are distributed in CD-ROM (or DVD) format along with the operating system software for all major UNIX variants, and they are available in hard-copy documents for some of these variants. The manual pages for some variants may also be found on web sites. Finally, the manual pages are included as online documentation with many variants.

Manual pages for UNIX commands may be accessed via the man command (for manual), also described here. If you want to find out whether you have the man pages for your system, typing

 $ man man

should display information about the man command itself. If you see a message saying that the man command is not found, see your system administrator; you will need to have the man package loaded separately

This appendix also describes how manual pages are indexed according to the type of function they perform, and describe the general layout of a manual page.

Finally, it describes the permuted index, a feature available with some UNIX variants, which are alphabetical lists of words taken from the NAMES section of manual pages, to find commands that perform tasks to solve your problems. It also shows you how to create your own permuted index. If you create any new UNIX programs, you might want to create your own manual pages following the conventions described here.




UNIX. The Complete Reference
UNIX: The Complete Reference, Second Edition (Complete Reference Series)
ISBN: 0072263369
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 316

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