To read a page from the manual, one can use the command
$ man [<section>] <page_name>
at a shell prompt, e.g. "man ftp" (the section number can usually be omitted). Pages are traditionally referred to using the notation "page_name(section)", e.g. ftp(1).
The section number is used to allow a specific manual page to be chosen when there are multiple manual pages with the same name. This can occur when the names of system calls, user commands, or macro packages[?] conflict. Two examples are man(1) and man(7), or exit(1) and exit(3).
The manual is generally split into eight numbered sections, organised as follows:
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | General commands |
| 2 | Low-level system calls |
| 3 | C library functions |
| 4 | Special files (usually devices, those found in /dev) |
| 5 | File formats and conventions |
| 6 | Games |
| 7 | Miscellanea |
| 8 | System administration and associated commands |
On some systems some of three other sections are available:
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| 9 | Kernel routines (obsolete) |
| n | Tcl/Tk keywords |
| x | The X Window System |
The manual pages are stored as nroff source files. Most versions of man cache the formatted versions of the last several pages viewed.
For an example of a man page see chmod.
This article was originally based on material from FOLDOC, used with permission. Update as needed.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump