06-02-2011
How to write a UNIX man page
I realise that with GNU 'info' a lot of developers become, dare I say it, quite lazy when it comes to providing a well written man page - and some argue they're not needed at all. But I find, in the products that I develop, that man pages are used more often for quick reference, and therefore the quality and usability of a product can be improved by providing well written man pages.
To that end, and because I've been writing man pages myself for over 10 years, I've decided to provide some notes for beginners on how to write your own man page. I hope this article is of help to the wider developer community:
Technical Prose: How to write a UNIX man page
Best regards,
Mark.
These 5 Users Gave Thanks to cambridge For This Post:
8 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting
1. News, Links, Events and Announcements
LINK:
Unix Manual (man page) pages in HTML
http://www.rt.com/man/
: More then 100 Commands found on a Unix system mannual pages can be obtained/refered here. Good Link.. (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: killerserv
1 Replies
2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
i've never done this before. i created a script that I placed in /usr/bin, but want to create a man page for it. i'm clueless
thanks (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: theDirtiest
3 Replies
3. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
I was wonderiong if ther is a way for a user to add a man page specific to thier account. similar to copying the .1 or .1.gz to /usr/share/man/man1 "cp *.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1". Except for using another folder as I don't have access to /usr/share/man/man1. I would think that this might involve... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: jacob358
1 Replies
4. Red Hat
Hi Guys,
I'm looking for the man page for scp version 1.2.27
I have an old redhat server that has a few large scripts that use this version and I want to know what the -A flag does and the man page is not on there. (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: Tornado
4 Replies
5. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
Man page is not working my system. It is giving the following the following error
> man ls
gdbm fatal: read error
with debug option
> man -d ls
...
....
...
...
using less as pager
checking for locale en_US
add_nls_manpath(): processing /usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: praveenkumar_l
4 Replies
6. Solaris
Help,
it seem that i am unable to get man help form solaris 10.
I am running SunOS unknown 5.10 Generic_120012-14 i86pc i386 i86pc
when ever i try to man a command what i get is "No manual entry" like the one below.
# man grep
No manual entry for grep.
# man ls
No manual entry for ls.... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: ezsurf
8 Replies
7. Solaris
Hi,
I would like to develop a man page as the one we usually get when we execute man <command name>. This man page will be for a samll utility that i have written.
If this is not possible then what are the available possibilites for creating such help.
thanks in advance. (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: raghu.amilineni
2 Replies
8. Solaris
What does the last change means in man page .. does that this man page has not been updated since 2003 or something else ?
newfs-options
The options are documented in the newfs man page.
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 9 Dec 2003 1
System... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: fugitive
2 Replies
LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN
undocumented
UNDOCUMENTED(7) Linux Programmer's Manual UNDOCUMENTED(7)
NAME
undocumented - No manpage for this program, utility or function.
DESCRIPTION
This program, utility or function does not have a useful manpage. Before opening a bug to report this, please check with the Debian Bug
Tracking System (BTS) at <http://bugs.debian.org/> if a bug has already been reported. If not, you can submit a wishlist bug if you want.
If you are a competent and accurate writer and are willing to spend the time reading the source code and writing good manpages please write
a better man page than this one. Please contact the package maintainer and copy man-pages@qa.debian.org in order to avoid several people
working on the same manpage.
Even if you are not an accurate writer, your input may be helpful. Writing manual pages is quite easy, the format is described in man(7).
The most important and time-consuming task is to collect the information to be put in the new manpage.
DIAGNOSTICS
It is possible that the man page for the command you specified is installed and that your manual page index caches are out of sync. You
should try running mandb(8).
Try the following options if you want more information:
foo --help, foo -h, foo -?
info foo
whatis foo, apropos foo
dpkg --listfiles foo, dpkg --search foo
locate '*foo*'
find / -name '*foo*'
Additionally, check the directories /usr/share/doc/foo, /usr/lib/foo.
The documentation might be in a package starting with the same name as the package the software belongs to, but ending with -doc or -docs.
If you still didn't find the information you are looking for you might consider posting a call for help to debian-user@lists.debian.org.
SEE ALSO
info(1), whatis(1), apropos(1), dpkg(8), locate(1), find(1), updatedb(1), undocumented(3), man(7), mandb(8), missing(7).
Debian GNU/Linux August 24th, 2003 UNDOCUMENTED(7)