07-07-2006
how to read man pages
can anybody explain me how to read unix
man pages?
for example when i want to get information about ps command
man ps gives me this output:
***********************************
Reformatting page. Please wait... completed
ps(1) ps(1)
NAME
ps - Displays current process status
SYNOPSIS
Syntax conforming to XCU5.0
ps [-aAdejflm] [-o specifier] [=header] ,... [-O specifier] [=header] ,...
[-g glist] [-G glist] [-p plist] [-s slist] [-t tlist] [-u ulist] [-U
ulist] [-n nlist]
***********************************
what does [[-aAdejflm]] mean?
what does specifier mean?
what does [=header mean] ?
what does [-g glist] mean?
what does [-u ulist] mean?
do you know any good source to understand unix man pages?
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MAN(1) General Commands Manual MAN(1)
NAME
man, lookman - print or find pages of this manual
SYNOPSIS
man [ option ... ] [ section ... ] title ...
lookman key ...
DESCRIPTION
Man locates and prints pages of this manual named title in the specified sections. Title is given in lower case. Each section is a num-
ber; pages marked (2S), for example, belong to chapter 2. If no section is specified, pages in all sections are printed. Any name from
the NAME section at the top of the page will serve as a title.
The options are:
-p Run proof(1) on the specified man pages.
-t Run troff and send its output to standard output.
-n (Default) Print the pages on the standard output using nroff.
Lookman prints the names of all manual sections that contain all of the key words given on the command line.
FILES
/sys/man/?/*
troff source for manual; this page is /sys/man/1/man
/sys/man/?/INDEX
indices searched to find pages corresponding to titles
/sys/lib/man/secindex
command to make an index for a given section
/sys/lib/man/lookman/index
index for lookman
SOURCE
/rc/bin/man
/rc/bin/lookman
SEE ALSO
proof(1)
BUGS
The manual was intended to be typeset; some detail is sacrificed on text terminals.
There is no automatic mechanism to keep the indices up to date.
Except for special cases, it doesn't recognize things that should be run through tbl and/or eqn.
MAN(1)