xref: /openbsd-src/usr.bin/mandoc/man.1 (revision 594d0641eae63ecbd3f01e5ff289a5172138e005)

.\" $OpenBSD: man.1,v 1.41 2025/01/26 14:43:05 schwarze Exp $
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.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993
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.\" Copyright (c) 2003, 2007, 2008, 2014 Jason McIntyre <jmc@openbsd.org>
.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2014-2020 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
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.\"     @(#)man.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 1/2/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: January 26 2025 $
.Dt MAN 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm man
.Nd display manual pages
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm man
.Op Fl acfhklw
.Op Fl C Ar file
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl m Ar path
.Op Fl S Ar subsection
.Op Oo Fl s Oc Ar section
.Ar name ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility
displays the
manual page entitled
.Ar name .
Pages may be selected according to
a specific category
.Pq Ar section
or
machine architecture
.Pq Ar subsection ,
or searched for with
.Fl k
using
.Xr apropos 1
search expressions.
The default pager,
.Xr less 1 ,
supports the command
.Ic :t
to jump to definitions of specific terms (see
.Dv MANPAGER ,
below).
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a
Display all matching manual pages.
.It Fl C Ar file
Use the specified
.Ar file
instead of the default configuration file.
This permits users to configure their own manual environment.
See
.Xr man.conf 5
for a description of the contents of this file.
.It Fl c
Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using
.Xr less 1
to paginate it.
This is done by default if the standard output is not a terminal device.
.Pp
When using
.Fl c ,
most terminal devices are unable to show the markup.
To print the output of
.Nm
to the terminal with markup but without using a pager, pipe it to
.Xr ul 1 .
To remove the markup, pipe the output to
.Xr col 1
.Fl b
instead.
.It Fl f
A synonym for
.Xr whatis 1 .
It searches for
.Ar name
in manual page names and displays the header lines from all matching pages.
The search is case insensitive and matches whole words only.
.It Fl h
Display only the SYNOPSIS lines of the requested manual pages.
Implies
.Fl a
and
.Fl c .
.It Fl k
A synonym for
.Xr apropos 1 .
Instead of
.Ar name ,
an expression can be provided using the syntax described in the
.Xr apropos 1
manual.
By default, it displays the header lines of all matching pages.
.It Fl l
A synonym for
.Xr mandoc 1 .
The
.Ar name
arguments are interpreted as filenames.
No search is done and
.Ar file ,
.Ar path ,
.Ar section ,
.Ar subsection ,
and
.Fl w
are ignored.
This option implies
.Fl a .
.It Fl M Ar path
Override the list of directories to search for manual pages.
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of directories.
This option also overrides the environment variable
.Ev MANPATH
and any directories specified in the
.Xr man.conf 5
file.
.It Fl m Ar path
Augment the list of directories to search for manual pages.
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of directories.
These directories will be searched before those specified using the
.Fl M
option, the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable, the
.Xr man.conf 5
file, or the default directories.
.It Fl S Ar subsection
Only show pages for the specified
.Xr machine 1
architecture.
.Ar subsection
is case insensitive.
.Pp
By default manual pages for all architectures are installed.
Therefore this option can be used to view pages for one
architecture whilst using another.
.Pp
This option overrides the
.Ev MACHINE
environment variable.
.Tg s
.It Oo Fl s Oc Ar section
Only select manuals from the specified
.Ar section .
The currently available sections are:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "localXXX" -offset indent -compact
.It 1
General commands
.Pq tools and utilities .
.It 2
System calls and error numbers.
.It 3
Library functions.
.It 3p
.Xr perl 1
programmer's reference guide.
.It 4
Device drivers.
.It 5
File formats.
.It 6
Games.
.It 7
Miscellaneous information.
.It 8
System maintenance and operation commands.
.It 9
Kernel internals.
.El
.It Fl w
List the pathnames of all matching manual pages instead of displaying
any of them.
If no
.Ar name
is given, list the directories that would be searched.
.El
.Pp
The options
.Fl IKOTW
are also supported and are documented in
.Xr mandoc 1 .
The options
.Fl fkl
are mutually exclusive and override each other.
.Pp
The search starts with the
.Fl m
argument if provided, then continues with the
.Fl M
argument, the
.Ev MANPATH
variable, the
.Ic manpath
entries in the
.Xr man.conf 5
file, or with
.Pa /usr/share/man : Ns Pa /usr/X11R6/man : Ns Pa /usr/local/man
by default.
Within each of these, directories are searched in the order provided.
Within each directory, the search proceeds according to the following
list of sections: 1, 8, 6, 2, 3, 5, 7, 4, 9, 3p.
The first match found is shown.
.Pp
The
.Xr mandoc.db 5
database is used for looking up manual page entries.
In cases where the database is absent, outdated, or corrupt,
.Nm
falls back to looking for files called
.Ar name . Ns Ar section .
If both a formatted and an unformatted version of the same manual page,
for example
.Pa cat1/foo.0
and
.Pa man1/foo.1 ,
exist in the same directory, only the unformatted version is used.
The database is kept up to date with
.Xr makewhatis 8 ,
which is run by the
.Xr weekly 8
maintenance script.
.Pp
Guidelines for writing
man pages can be found in
.Xr mdoc 7 .
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Bl -tag -width MANPATHX
.It Ev MACHINE
As some manual pages are intended only for specific architectures,
.Nm
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 environment
variable
.Ev MACHINE
to the name of a specific architecture,
or with the
.Fl S
option.
.Ev MACHINE
is case insensitive.
.It Ev MANPAGER
Any non-empty value of the environment variable
.Ev MANPAGER
is used instead of the standard pagination program,
.Xr less 1 .
If
.Xr less 1
is used, the interactive
.Ic :t
command can be used to go to the definitions of various terms, for
example command line options, command modifiers, internal commands,
environment variables, function names, preprocessor macros,
.Xr errno 2
values, and some other emphasized words.
Some terms may have defining text at more than one place.
In that case, the
.Xr less 1
interactive commands
.Ic t
and
.Ic T
can be used to move to the next and to the previous place providing
information about the term last searched for with
.Ic :t .
The
.Fl O Cm tag Ns Op = Ns Ar term
option documented in the
.Xr mandoc 1
manual opens a manual page at the definition of a specific
.Ar term
rather than at the beginning.
.It Ev MANPATH
Override the standard search path which is either specified in
.Xr man.conf 5
or the default path.
The format of
.Ev MANPATH
is a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of directories.
Invalid directories are ignored.
Overridden by
.Fl M ,
ignored if
.Fl l
is specified.
.Pp
If
.Ev MANPATH
begins with a colon, it is appended to the standard path;
if it ends with a colon, it is prepended to the standard path;
or if it contains two adjacent colons,
the standard path is inserted between the colons.
.It Ev PAGER
Specifies the pagination program to use when
.Ev MANPAGER
is not defined.
If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined,
.Xr less 1
is used.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /etc/man.conf -compact
.It Pa /etc/man.conf
default
.Nm
configuration file
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std man
See
.Xr mandoc 1
for details.
.Sh EXAMPLES
Show all manual pages that mention the
.Ev PWD
environment variable:
.Pp
.Dl $ man -ak Ev=PWD
.Pp
Show the
.Xr ksh 1
manual and jump to the place where the
.Ic pwd
builtin command is described:
.Pp
.Dl $ man -O tag=pwd ksh
.Pp
Equivalently, use the command
.Ql man ksh ,
then type
.Ql :tpwd
and press the return key.
.Pp
Format a page for pasting extracts into an email message \(em
avoid printing any UTF-8 characters, reduce the width to ease
quoting in replies, and remove markup:
.Pp
.Dl $ man -T ascii -O width=65 pledge | col -b
.Pp
Read a typeset page in a PDF viewer:
.Pp
.Dl $ MANPAGER=mupdf man -T pdf lpd
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr col 1 ,
.Xr mandoc 1 ,
.Xr ul 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1 ,
.Xr man.conf 5 ,
.Xr mdoc 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility is compliant with the
.St -p1003.1-2008
specification.
.Pp
The flags
.Op Fl aCcfhIKlMmOSsTWw ,
as well as the environment variables
.Ev MACHINE ,
.Ev MANPAGER ,
and
.Ev MANPATH ,
are extensions to that specification.
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command first appeared in
.At v2 .
.Pp
The
.Fl w
option first appeared in
.At v7 ;
.Fl f
and
.Fl k
in
.Pa /usr/usb/man
in
.Bx 4.0 ;
.Fl M
in
.Bx 4.3 ;
.Fl a
in
.Bx 4.3 Tahoe ;
.Fl c
and
.Fl m
in
.Bx 4.3 Reno ;
.Fl h
in
.Bx 4.3 Net/2 ;
.Fl C
in
.Nx 1.0 ;
.Fl s
and
.Fl S
in
.Ox 2.3 ;
and
.Fl I ,
.Fl K ,
.Fl l ,
.Fl O ,
and
.Fl W
in
.Ox 5.7 .
The
.Fl T
option first appeared in
.At III
and was also added in
.Ox 5.7 .