FreeBSD Manual Pages
MAN(1) General Commands Manual MAN(1) NAME man -- display online manual documentation pages SYNOPSIS man [-adho] [-t | -w] [-M manpath] [-P pager] [-S mansect] [-m arch[:machine]] [-p [eprtv]] [mansect] page | file ... man -K | -f | -k expression ... DESCRIPTION The man utility finds and displays online manual documentation pages. If mansect is provided, man restricts the search to the specific sec- tion of the manual. The sections of the manual are: 1. FreeBSD General Commands Manual 2. FreeBSD System Calls Manual 3. FreeBSD Library Functions Manual 4. FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual 5. FreeBSD File Formats Manual 6. FreeBSD Games Manual 7. FreeBSD Miscellaneous Information Manual 8. FreeBSD System Manager's Manual 9. FreeBSD Kernel Developer's Manual Options that man understands: -K expression Search full text of all manual pages for an extended regular expression, as described in re_format(7). This option requires mandoc(1). This is a slow operation. -M manpath Force a specific colon separated manual path instead of the de- fault search path. See MANPATH in "ENVIRONMENT". -P pager Use specified pager. Defaults to `less -sR' if color support is enabled, or `less -s'. Overrides the MANPAGER environment variable, which in turn overrides the PAGER environment vari- able. -S mansect Restrict manual sections searched to the specified colon delim- ited list. Defaults to `1:8:2:3:3lua:n:4:5:6:7:9:l'. Over- rides the MANSECT environment variable. -a Display all manual pages instead of just the first found for each page argument. -d Print extra debugging information. Repeat for increased ver- bosity. Does not display the manual page. -f expression Search names of all manual pages for an extended regular expression, emulating whatis(1). -h Display short help message and exit. -k expression Search names and descriptions of all manual pages for an ex- tended regular expression, emulating basic functionality of apropos(1). -m arch[:machine] Override the default architecture and machine settings allowing lookup of other platform specific manual pages. See "IMPLEMENTATION NOTES" for how this option changes the default behavior. Overrides the MACHINE_ARCH and MACHINE environment variables. -o Force use of non-localized manual pages. See "IMPLEMENTATION NOTES" for how locale specific searches work. Overrides the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables. -p [eprtv] Use the list of given preprocessors before running nroff(1) (ports/textproc/groff) or troff(1) (ports/textproc/groff). Valid preprocessors arguments: e eqn(1) (ports/textproc/groff) p pic(1) (ports/textproc/groff) r refer(1) (ports/textproc/groff) t tbl(1) (ports/textproc/groff) v vgrind(1) Overrides the MANROFFSEQ environment variable. -t Send manual page source through troff(1) (ports/textproc/groff) allowing transformation of the manual pages to other formats. -w Display the location of the manual page instead of the contents of the manual page. IMPLEMENTATION NOTES Locale Specific Searches The man utility supports manual pages in different locales. The search behavior is dictated by the first of three environment variables with a nonempty string: LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, or LANG. If set, man will search for locale specific manual pages using the following logic: lang_country.charset lang.charset en.charset For example, if LC_ALL is set to `ja_JP.eucJP', man will search the following paths when considering section 1 manual pages in /usr/share/man: /usr/share/man/ja_JP.eucJP/man1 /usr/share/man/ja.eucJP/man1 /usr/share/man/en.eucJP/man1 /usr/share/man/man1 Platform Specific Searches The man utility supports platform specific manual pages. The search behavior is dictated by the -m option or the MACHINE_ARCH and MACHINE environment variables. For example, if MACHINE_ARCH is set to `aarch64' and MACHINE is set to `arm64', man will search the following paths when considering section 4 manual pages in /usr/share/man: /usr/share/man/man4/aarch64 /usr/share/man/man4/arm64 /usr/share/man/man4 Displaying Specific Manual Files The man utility also supports displaying a specific manual page if passed a path to the file as long as it contains a `/' character. ENVIRONMENT The following environment variables affect the execution of man: LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG Used to find locale specific manual pages. Valid values can be found by running the locale(1) command. See "IMPLEMENTATION NOTES" for details. Influenced by the -o option. MACHINE_ARCH, MACHINE Used to find platform specific manual pages. If unset, the output of `sysctl hw.machine_arch' and `sysctl hw.machine' is used respectively. See "IMPLEMENTATION NOTES" for details. Corresponds to the -m option. MANPATH A colon (`:') separated list of directories to check for manual pages. Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored. Overridden by -M. If 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. See manpath(1). MANROFFSEQ Used to determine the preprocessors for the manual source be- fore running nroff(1) (ports/textproc/groff) or troff(1) (ports/textproc/groff). If unset, defaults to tbl(1) (ports/textproc/groff). Corresponds to the -p option. MANSECT Restricts manual sections searched to the specified colon de- limited list. Corresponds to the -S option. MANWIDTH If set to a numeric value, used as the width manpages should be displayed. Otherwise, if set to a special value `tty', and output is to a terminal, the pages may be displayed over the whole width of the screen. MANCOLOR If set, enables color support. MANPAGER Program used to display files. If unset, and color support is enabled, `less -sR' is used. If unset, and color support is disabled, then PAGER is used. If that has no value either, `less -s' is used. FILES /etc/man.conf System configuration file /usr/local/etc/man.d/*.conf Local configuration files EXIT STATUS The man utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. EXAMPLES Show the manual page for stat(2): $ man 2 stat Show all manual pages for `stat': $ man -a stat List manual pages which match the regular expression either in the ti- tle or in the body: $ man -k '\<copy\>.*archive' Show the manual page for ls(1) using cat(1) as the pager: $ man -P cat ls Show the location of the ls(1) manual page: $ man -w ls Show a manual page in the current working directory: $ man ./man.1 Show the location of manual pages in sections 1 and 8 which contain the word `arm': $ man -w -K '\<arm\>' -S 1:8 SEE ALSO apropos(1), intro(1), mandoc(1), manpath(1), whatis(1), intro(2), intro(3), intro(3lua), intro(4), intro(5), man.conf(5), intro(6), intro(7), mdoc(7), re_format(7), intro(8), intro(9) FreeBSD 14.3 January 24, 2025 MAN(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | IMPLEMENTATION NOTES | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO
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