xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/man/man.1 (revision fa9896e082a1046ff4fbc75fcba4d18d1f2efc19)

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.Dd January 26, 2022
.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 K
.Ar regexp ...
.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
.Fx
General Commands Manual
.It
.Fx
System Calls Manual
.It
.Fx
Library Functions Manual
.It
.Fx
Kernel Interfaces Manual
.It
.Fx
File Formats Manual
.It
.Fx
Games Manual
.It
.Fx
Miscellaneous Information Manual
.It
.Fx
System Manager's Manual
.It
.Fx
Kernel Developer's Manual
.El
.Pp
Options that
.Nm
understands:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl K Ar regexp
Does a full text search in all manual pages.
.Ar regexp
is a regular expression as understood by
.Dq Li "grep -E" .
This option requires
.Xr mandoc 1 .
This is a slow operation.
.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 1:8:2:3:3lua: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 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
or
.Xr troff 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff .
Valid preprocessors arguments:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
.It Cm e
.Xr eqn 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
.It Cm p
.Xr pic 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
.It Cm r
.Xr refer 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
.It Cm t
.Xr tbl 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
.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 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
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 _ Ns Va country Ns . Ns Va charset
.It
.Va lang Ns . Ns Va charset
.It
.Li en Ns . 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 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff
or
.Xr troff 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff .
If unset, defaults to
.Xr tbl 1 Pq Pa ports/textproc/groff .
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<copy\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
.Pp
Show the location of manual pages in sections 1 and 8 which contain the word
.Ql arm :
.Bd -literal -offset indent
$ ./man -w -K '\e<arm\e>' -S 1:8
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr egrep 1 ,
.Xr intro 1 ,
.Xr mandoc 1 ,
.Xr manpath 1 ,
.Xr whatis 1 ,
.Xr intro 2 ,
.Xr intro 3 ,
.Xr intro 3lua ,
.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