man(1) - NetBSD Manual Pages

MAN(1)                      NetBSD Reference Manual                     MAN(1)


NAME

     man - display the on-line manual pages


SYNOPSIS

     man [-achw] [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [section] name ...


DESCRIPTION

     The man utility displays the BSD manual pages entitled name.

     The options are as follows:

     -a      Display all of the manual pages for a specified section and name
             combination.  (Normally, only the first manual page found is dis-
             played.)

     -C      Use the specified file instead of the default configuration file.
             This permits users to configure their own manual environment.
             See man.conf(5) for a description of the contents of this file.

     -c      Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using
             more(1) to paginate it.  This is done by default if the standard
             output is not a terminal device.

     -h      Display only the ``SYNOPSIS'' lines of the requested manual
             pages.

     -M      Override the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (``:'') separat-
             ed list of directories.  This search path may also be set using
             the environment variable MANPATH.  The subdirectories to be
             searched, and their search order, is specified by the ``_subdir''
             line in the man configuration file.

     -m      Augment the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (``:'') separat-
             ed list of directories.  These directories will be searched be-
             fore the standard directories or the directories specified using
             the -M option or the MANPATH environment variable.  The subdirec-
             tories to be searched, and their search order, is specified by
             the ``_subdir'' line in the man configuration file.

     -w      List the pathnames of the manual pages which man would display
             for the specified section and name combination.

     The optional section argument restricts the directories that man will
     search.  The man configuration file (see man.conf(5)) specifies the pos-
     sible section values that are currently available.  If only a single ar-
     gument is specified or if the first argument is not a valid section, man
     assumes that the argument is the name of a manual page to be displayed.


ENVIRONMENT

     MACHINE   As some manual pages are intended only for specific architec-
               tures, man searches any subdirectories, with the same name as
               the current architecture, in every directory which it searches.
               Machine specific areas are checked before general areas.  The
               current machine type may be overridden by setting the environ-
               ment variable MACHINE to the name of a specific architecture.

     MANPATH   The standard search path used by man may be overridden by spec-
               ifying a path in the MANPATH environment variable.  The format
               of the path is a colon (``:'') separated list of directories.
               The subdirectories to be searched as well as their search order
               is specified by the ``_subdir'' line in the man configuration
               file.

     PAGER     Any value of the environment variable PAGER will be used in-
               stead of the standard pagination program, more(1).


FILES

     /etc/man.conf  default man configuration file.


SEE ALSO

     apropos(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), man.conf(5), mdoc(7), mdoc.samples(7)


BUGS

     The on-line manual pages are, by necessity, forgiving toward stupid dis-
     play devices, causing a few manual pages to be not as nicely formatted as
     their typeset counterparts.


HISTORY

     A man command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

NetBSD 1.4                      January 2, 1994                              2