.\"- .\" Copyright (c) 2010 Gordon Tetlow .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $FreeBSD: head/usr.bin/man/man.1 337497 2018-08-08 19:24:20Z asomers $ .\" .Dd September 24, 2021 .Dt MAN 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm man .Nd display online manual documentation pages .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl adho .Op Fl t | w .Op Fl M Ar manpath .Op Fl P Ar pager .Op Fl S Ar mansect .Op Fl m Ar arch Ns Op : Ns Ar machine .Op Fl p Op Ar eprtv .Op Ar mansect .Ar page ... .Nm .Fl f .Ar keyword ... .Nm .Fl k .Ar keyword ... .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility finds and displays online manual documentation pages. If .Ar mansect is provided, .Nm restricts the search to the specific section of the manual. .Pp The sections of the manual are: .Bl -enum -offset indent -compact .It .Dx General Commands Manual .It .Dx System Calls Manual .It .Dx Library Functions Manual .It .Dx Kernel Interfaces Manual .It .Dx File Formats Manual .It .Dx Games Manual .It .Dx Miscellaneous Information Manual .It .Dx System Manager's Manual .It .Dx Kernel Developer's Manual .El .Pp Options that .Nm understands: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl M Ar manpath Forces a specific colon separated manual path instead of the default search path. See .Xr manpath 1 . Overrides the .Ev MANPATH environment variable. .It Fl P Ar pager Use specified pager. Defaults to .Dq Li "less -sR" if color support is enabled, or .Dq Li "less -s" . Overrides the .Ev MANPAGER environment variable, which in turn overrides the .Ev PAGER environment variable. .It Fl S Ar mansect Restricts manual sections searched to the specified colon delimited list. Defaults to .Dq Li 1:8:2:3:n:4:5:6:7:9:l . Overrides the .Ev MANSECT environment variable. .It Fl a Display all manual pages instead of just the first found for each .Ar page argument. .It Fl d Print extra debugging information. Repeat for increased verbosity. Does not display the manual page. .It Fl f Emulate .Xr whatis 1 . .It Fl h Display short help message and exit. .It Fl k Emulate .Xr apropos 1 . .It Fl m Ar arch Ns Op : Ns Ar machine Override the default architecture and machine settings allowing lookup of other platform specific manual pages. See .Sx IMPLEMENTATION NOTES for how this option changes the default behavior. Overrides the .Ev MACHINE_ARCH and .Ev MACHINE environment variables. .It Fl o Force use of non-localized manual pages. See .Sx IMPLEMENTATION NOTES for how locale specific searches work. Overrides the .Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , and .Ev LANG environment variables. .It Fl p Op Cm eprtv Use the list of given preprocessors before running .Xr nroff 1 or .Xr troff 1 . Valid preprocessors arguments: .Pp .Bl -tag -width indent -compact .It Cm e .Xr eqn 1 .It Cm p .Xr pic 1 .It Cm r .Xr refer 1 .It Cm t .Xr tbl 1 .It Cm v .Xr vgrind 1 .El .Pp Overrides the .Ev MANROFFSEQ environment variable. .It Fl t Send manual page source through .Xr troff 1 allowing transformation of the manual pages to other formats. .It Fl w Display the location of the manual page instead of the contents of the manual page. .El .Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES .Ss Locale Specific Searches The .Nm utility supports manual pages in different locales. The search behavior is dictated by the first of three environment variables with a nonempty string: .Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , or .Ev LANG . If set, .Nm will search for locale specific manual pages using the following logic: .Pp .Bl -item -offset indent -compact .It .Va lang _ Ns Va country . Ns Va charset .It .Va lang . Ns Va charset .It .Li en . Ns Va charset .El .Pp For example, if .Ev LC_ALL is set to .Dq Li ja_JP.eucJP , .Nm will search the following paths when considering section 1 manual pages in .Pa /usr/share/man : .Pp .Bl -item -offset indent -compact .It .Pa /usr/share/man/ja_JP.eucJP/man1 .It .Pa /usr/share/man/ja.eucJP/man1 .It .Pa /usr/share/man/en.eucJP/man1 .It .Pa /usr/share/man/man1 .El .Ss Platform Specific Searches The .Nm utility supports platform specific manual pages. The search behavior is dictated by the .Fl m option or the .Ev MACHINE_ARCH and .Ev MACHINE environment variables. For example, if .Ev MACHINE_ARCH is set to .Dq Li aarch64 and .Ev MACHINE is set to .Dq Li arm64 , .Nm will search the following paths when considering section 4 manual pages in .Pa /usr/share/man : .Pp .Bl -item -offset indent -compact .It .Pa /usr/share/man/man4/aarch64 .It .Pa /usr/share/man/man4/arm64 .It .Pa /usr/share/man/man4 .El .Ss Displaying Specific Manual Files The .Nm utility also supports displaying a specific manual page if passed a path to the file as long as it contains a .Ql / character. .Sh ENVIRONMENT The following environment variables affect the execution of .Nm : .Bl -tag -width ".Ev MANROFFSEQ" .It Ev LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE , LANG Used to find locale specific manual pages. Valid values can be found by running the .Xr locale 1 command. See .Sx IMPLEMENTATION NOTES for details. Influenced by the .Fl o option. .It Ev MACHINE_ARCH , MACHINE Used to find platform specific manual pages. If unset, the output of .Dq Li "sysctl hw.machine_arch" and .Dq Li "sysctl hw.machine" is used respectively. See .Sx IMPLEMENTATION NOTES for details. Corresponds to the .Fl m option. .It Ev MANPATH The standard search path used by .Xr man 1 may be changed by specifying a path in the .Ev MANPATH environment variable. Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored. Overridden by .Fl M . If .Ev MANPATH begins with a colon, it is appended to the default list; if it ends with a colon, it is prepended to the default list; or if it contains two adjacent colons, the standard search path is inserted between the colons. If none of these conditions are met, it overrides the standard search path. .It Ev MANROFFSEQ Used to determine the preprocessors for the manual source before running .Xr nroff 1 or .Xr troff 1 . If unset, defaults to .Xr tbl 1 . Corresponds to the .Fl p option. .It Ev MANSECT Restricts manual sections searched to the specified colon delimited list. Corresponds to the .Fl S option. .It Ev MANWIDTH If set to a numeric value, used as the width manpages should be displayed. Otherwise, if set to a special value .Dq Li tty , and output is to a terminal, the pages may be displayed over the whole width of the screen. .It Ev MANCOLOR If set, enables color support. .It Ev MANPAGER Program used to display files. .Pp If unset, and color support is enabled, .Dq Li "less -sR" is used. .Pp If unset, and color support is disabled, then .Ev PAGER is used. If that has no value either, .Dq Li "less -s" is used. .El .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width indent -compact .It Pa /etc/man.conf System configuration file. .It Pa /usr/local/etc/man.d/*.conf Local configuration files. .El .Sh EXIT STATUS .Ex -std .Sh EXAMPLES Show the manual page for .Xr stat 2 : .Bd -literal -offset indent $ man 2 stat .Ed .Pp Show all manual pages for .Ql stat . .Bd -literal -offset indent $ man -a stat .Ed .Pp List manual pages which match the regular expression either in the title or in the body: .Bd -literal -offset indent $ man -k '\e.*archive' .Ed .Pp Show the manual page for .Xr ls 1 and use .Xr cat 1 as pager: .Bd -literal -offset indent $ man -P cat ls .Ed .Pp Show the location of the .Xr ls 1 manual page: .Bd -literal -offset indent $ man -w ls .Ed .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr apropos 1 , .Xr intro 1 , .Xr mandoc 1 , .Xr manpath 1 , .Xr whatis 1 , .Xr intro 2 , .Xr intro 3 , .Xr intro 4 , .Xr intro 5 , .Xr man.conf 5 , .Xr intro 6 , .Xr intro 7 , .Xr mdoc 7 , .Xr intro 8 , .Xr intro 9