Using Man to Get On-line Manual Pages


You can use the unix command "man" to print a manual page for a command, system call, or library function. The manual pages can be a bit cryptic, but they are sometimes helpful. Try "man man" for an example. If you use emacs, you can use "M-x man" to view a manual page in a window.

Note that each manual page has a section number (usually 1, 2, or 3) at the top, after the command or function name. Section 1 is for commands you can type at the shell prompt; Section 2, for system calls, and Section 3 for library functions. If you need to specify which section of the manual you want, you can use the "-s" option, for example "man -s 1 time" and "man -s 2 time" print two different manual pages (you may be able to figure this out from the "man man").

On some systems, the command "apropos" can be used to get a list of manual pages for any topic (apropos trig lists manual pages with trigonometry functions).


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