The man Command

Summary

The man command in Linux is used to display the user manual of any command that we can run on the terminal. It provides a detailed view of the command which includes NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, OPTIONS, EXIT STATUS, RETURN VALUES, ERRORS, FILES, VERSIONS, EXAMPLES, AUTHORS and SEE ALSO. See this guide for more information.

Every manual is divided into the following sections:

• Executable programs or shell commands
• System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
• Library calls (functions within program libraries

• Games

• Special files (usually found in /dev)
• File formats and conventions eg /etc/passwd
• Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions), e.g. groff(7)
• System administration commands (usually only for root)
• Kernel routines [Non standard]

Basic command structure

For all descriptions below, the dollar sign indicates that BASH command prompt.

$ man [options] [name of command]

Possible Flags

-a

By default, man will exit after displaying the most suitable manual page it finds. Using this option forces man to display all the manual pages with names that match the search criteria. Source

-I

The -I flag earch for manual pages case-sensitively. Source

-u

The -u flag causes man to update its database caches of installed manual pages. This is only needed in rare situations, and it is normally better to run mandb(8) instead. Source

Output

The man command has a general output for information regarding whichever command you are searching the manual for more information on.