man(1) General Commands Manual man(1)
NAME
man - find manual information by keywords; print out a manual entry
SYNOPSIS
path] keyword...
path] file...
path] macro-package] [section[subsection]] entry_name...
DESCRIPTION
accesses information from the HP-UX manual pages. It can be used to:
o List all manual entries whose one-line description contains any of a specified set of keywords.
o Display or print one-line descriptions of entries specified by name.
o Search on-line manual directories by entry name and display or print the specified entry or entries.
o 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)
The first form above searches the one-line descriptions of individual entries for specified keywords. Arguments are as follows:
followed by one or more keywords causes
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 must exist. can be created by running catman(1M).
Obtaining One-Line Description of an Entry (second form)
The second form above finds and displays or prints the one-line descriptions of specified individual entries. Arguments are as follows:
followed by one or more file names causes
to print the one-line description of each manual 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 sec-
tions, the one-line description of each matched file name is output.
Before this option can be used, file must exist. can be created by running catman(1M).
Viewing Individual Manual Entries (third form)
The third form shown above is used for viewing one or more individual manual entries. in this form recognizes the following arguments:
(optional) When the
argument is present, sends the formatted manual entry directly to standard output without processing it through the
output filter specified by the environment variable.
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 or
options, the option must appear first.
uses macro-package rather than the standard -man
macros defined in for formatting manual pages.
When specifying the option to , the full path must be given. For example:
section[subsection]
(optional) Search in the specified section for the given entry_name. section specifies a single section number or
one of the words or to search for one or more of the entries indicated. section corresponds to the section number
where the entry appears in the It can be followed by an optional uppercase/lowercase subsection identifier such as
which would indicate a library routine in Section 3. and are interpreted as equivalent, since all Section 3 manual
entries are stored in the same or in related directories (such as and However, if an entry is in Section 1M, section
must be specified as or
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 cor-
responding manual entry.
If entry_name is longer than 11 characters, 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 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), searches all sections of the manual in order: then
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, will
display only will display
If the standard output is a teletype, and if the flag is not given, pipes its output through (see more(1)), with the option, to eliminate
multiple blank lines and stop after each screenful. This default behavior can be changed by setting the variable in the user's environ-
ment. The value of must be a string that names an output filter (such as pg(1)), along with the desired options.
File Search Conventions
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: and
The environment variable can be used to specify directories to be searched, and, if set, overrides the default paths given above. Upon log-
ging in, ( or ) sets the environment variable to default settings. If the file exists, the default settings are taken from this file. The
variable follows the same form as the variable (see environ(5)).
Within each of these directories, searches in the subdirectories, the subdirectories, the subdirectories, and the subdirectories. and
directories contain nroff(1)-compatible source text for the entries. and directories contain the formatted versions of the entries. and
directories contain entries in compressed form. Files in these directories are uncompressed by (see compress(1)) before being processed
for printing or display.
If the environment variable is set to any valid language name defined by lang(5), and the variable is not set, or is set to the default
directories, searches in three additional directories for the manual entry before searching in First, searches in then in then in Thus,
native-language manual entries are displayed if they are present and installed properly in the system.
If the environment variable is set to anything other than the default, the above directories with as part of the path are not automatically
searched. All directories must be explicitly given in The and specifiers can be used as path components to cause locale-specific directo-
ries to be searched. See environ(5) for a complete description of
uses the most recent version that it finds in the subdirectories searched. If the most recent version is in:
The entry is uncompressed, formatted, and displayed.
If the directory exists, the formatted entry is compressed and installed in If the directory exists, the formatted
entry is installed in
The entry is uncompressed and displayed.
The entry is formatted, and displayed.
If the directory exists, it is compressed, and installed in If the directory exists, the formatted entry is installed
in
The entry is displayed.
If only the or subdirectory is present and/or nroff(1) is not installed, only entries that are already formatted can be displayed.
To improve performance, you can run the catman(1M) command to create the formatted entries in the directories. Running with the default
creates the directories (after removing any directories that exist on your system) and also creates the file used by the option. If you
choose to have the directories, it would be space-saving to remove any directories that may exist on your system. Beware that updates both
directories and if they both exist.
Special Manual Entries
Some situations may require creation of manual entries for local use or distribution by third-party software suppliers. The manual format-
ting macros have been structured to redefine page footers so that manual entries not originating from Hewlett-Packard Company do not show
the name in the footer. For more information about this change and a description of the manual formatting macros used with or see man(5).
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
determines the language in which messages are displayed. is also used to determine the search path (as described above).
If is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of for messages, but not for the search
path.
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See
environ(5).
if set, gives a list of directories to be searched for the given entry, replacing the default paths.
if set, defines an output filter to be used instead of more(1) to paginate output.
International Code Set Support
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
EXAMPLES
List the manual entries that contain the word in their respective one-line description (NAME) lines:
The output is:
Print the one-line description of the grep(1) manual entry:
Print the entire grep(1) manual entry:
Set a search path that includes a path directly below the current directory. The manual entry, is assumed to exist in the directory (or or
Display the manual entry for id(1), with the output piped through
Display intro(4) and intro(3):
WARNINGS
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
keyword database
formatted manual entries [compressed]
raw ( nroff(1)) source) manual entries [compressed]
formatted native-language manual entries [compressed]
raw ( nroff(1)) source) native-language manual entries [compressed]
SEE ALSO
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
man(1)