1 .. -*- coding: utf-8; -*-

     2 .. include:: HEADER.rst

     3 

     4 ===========

     5  Man pages

     6 ===========

     7 .. contents::

     8    :local:

     9 

    10 Man sections

    11 ============

    12 

    13   1 Executable programs or shell commands.

    14   2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel).

    15   3 Library calls (functions within program libraries).

    16   4 Special files (usually found in /dev).

    17   5 File formats and conventions eg /etc/passwd.

    18   6 Games.

    19   7 Miscellaneous (including macro  packages  and  conventions).

    20   8 System administration commands (usually only for root).

    21 

    22 Invoking man

    23 ============

    24 

    25 Search for prog, func, conf file::

    26 

    27   $ man [<section>] <item>

    28 

    29 Search by specific keywords::

    30 

    31   $ man -k <keywords>

    32 

    33 Viewing inside Emacs::

    34 

    35   M-x man RET [<section>] <item>

    36   M-x man RET -k SPACE <keywords>

    37 

    38 Sections order

    39 ==============

    40 ::

    41 

    42   NAME                - brief prog description

    43   SYNOPSIS (USAGE)    - command line options in BNF

    44   DESCRIPTION         - long prog description

    45   OPTIONS             - long option descriptions

    46   ... misc sections ...

    47   EXAMPLES

    48   EXIT STATUS

    49   ENVIRONMENT

    50   AVAILABILITY        - whare search source, where home page

    51   FILES               - list of files that has effect on program working

    52   AUTHORS

    53   COPYRIGHT

    54   SEE ALSO

    55   BUGS                - know issue, how report bug

    56   HISTORY

    57 

    58 Man page showing

    59 ================

    60 

    61 TODO

    62 Bolt by print char, back one char and print same char.

    63 Underscore by printing undescore, back one char and print char.

    64 

    65 Development tools

    66 =================

    67 

    68 To preview local man page::

    69 

    70   $ groff -man -Tascii foo.1            # 7-bit char

    71   $ groff -man -Tlatin1 foo.1           # 8-bit char

    72   $ groff -man -Tlatin1 foo.1 | less

    73   $ groff -a -mandoc -Tlatin1 e.1

    74   $ groff -man -Tutf8 foo.1

    75 

    76   $ man ./foo.1                         # if slashes in path - use file

    77 

    78   $ mkdir man1

    79   $ cp foo.1 man1

    80   $ man -M . 1 foo                      # without slashes search in MANPATH item

    81                                         # and add /man1 to each item

    82 

    83 Output format

    84 =============

    85 

    86 Plain text::

    87 

    88   $ man foo | col -b >.foo.txt

    89 

    90 PostScript::

    91 

    92   $ groff -Tps foo >foo.ps

    93 

    94 DVI::

    95 

    96   $ groff -Tdvi foo >foo.dvi

    97