man - format and display the on-line manual pages
       manpath - determine user's search path for man pages


SYNOPSIS

       man  [-acdfFhkKtwW]  [--path]  [-m system] [-p string] [-C
       config_file] [-M pathlist] [-P  pager]  [-S  section_list]
       [section] name ...


DESCRIPTION

       man formats and displays the on-line manual pages.  If you
       specify section, man only looks in  that  section  of  the
       manual.   name  is  normally  the name of the manual page,
       which is typically the name of  a  command,  function,  or
       file.   However,  if  name  contains  a slash (/) then man
       interprets it as a file specification, so that you can  do
       man ./foo.5 or even man /cd/foo/bar.1.gz.

       See  below  for  a  description of where man looks for the
       manual page files.


OPTIONS

       -C  config_file
              Specify the configuration file to use; the  default
              is /etc/man.config.  (See man.conf(5).)

       -M  path
              Specify  the  list of directories to search for man
              pages.  Separate the directories with  colons.   An
              empty list is the same as not specifying -M at all.
              See SEARCH PATH FOR MANUAL PAGES.

       -P  pager
              Specify which pager to use.  This option  overrides
              the  MANPAGER  environment  variable, which in turn
              overrides the PAGER variable.  By default, man uses
              /usr/bin/less-isr.

       -S  section_list
              List  is  a colon separated list of manual sections
              to search.  This option overrides the MANSECT envi­
              ronment variable.

       -a     By  default,  man  will  exit  after displaying the
              first manual page  it  finds.   Using  this  option
              forces  man  to  display  all the manual pages that
              match name, not just the first.

       -c     Reformat the source man page, even when  an  up-to-
              date  cat  page  exists.  This can be meaningful if
              the cat page was formatted for a screen with a dif­
              ferent  number  of  columns, or if the preformatted


       -d     Don't actually display the man pages, but do  print
              gobs of debugging information.

       -D     Both display and print debugging info.

       -f     Equivalent to whatis.

       -F or --preformat
              Format only - do not display.

       -h     Print a one-line help message and exit.

       -k     Equivalent to apropos.

       -K     Search for the specified string in *all* man pages.
              Warning: this is probably very slow!  It  helps  to
              specify  a section.  (Just to give a rough idea, on
              my machine this takes about a minute  per  500  man
              pages.)

       -m  system
              Specify  an  alternate  set  of man pages to search
              based on the system name given.

       -p  string
              Specify the sequence of preprocessors to run before
              nroff  or troff.  Not all installations will have a
              full set of preprocessors.  Some of the  preproces­
              sors  and  the  letters used to designate them are:
              eqn (e), grap (g), pic (p), tbl  (t),  vgrind  (v),
              refer  (r).   This  option overrides the MANROFFSEQ
              environment variable.

       -t     Use /usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc to format the  man­
              ual page, passing the output to stdout.  The output
              from /usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc  may  need  to  be
              passed  through some filter or another before being
              printed.

       -w or --path
              Don't actually display the man pages, but do  print
              the  location(s) of the files that would be format­
              ted or displayed. If no argument is given:  display
              (on   stdout)  the  list  of  directories  that  is
              searched by man for man pages. If manpath is a link
              to  man,  then  "manpath"  is  equivalent  to  "man
              --path".

       -W     Like -w, but print file names one per line, without
              additional  information.   This  is useful in shell
              commands like man -aW man | xargs ls -l

       Man will try to save the formatted man pages, in order  to
       save formatting time the next time these pages are needed.
       Traditionally, formatted versions of pages in DIR/manX are
       saved  in DIR/catX, but other mappings from man dir to cat
       dir can be specified in /etc/man.config.  No cat pages are
       saved when the required cat directory does not exist.

       It  is possible to make man suid to a user man. Then, if a
       cat directory has owner man and mode 0755  (only  writable
       by man), and the cat files have owner man and mode 0644 or
       0444 (only writable by man, or not writable  at  all),  no
       ordinary  user can change the cat pages or put other files
       in the cat directory. If man is not made suid, then a  cat
       directory  should  have  mode  0777 if all users should be
       able to leave cat pages there.

       The option -c forces reformatting a page, even if a recent
       cat page exists.


SEARCH PATH FOR MANUAL PAGES

       man  uses  a  sophisticated  method of finding manual page
       files, based on the  invocation  options  and  environment
       variables,  the  /etc/man.config  configuration  file, and
       some built in conventions and heuristics.

       First of all, when the name argument  to  man  contains  a
       slash  (/), man assumes it is a file specification itself,
       and there is no searching involved.

       But in the normal case where name doesn't contain a slash,
       man  searches  a  variety  of  directories for a file that
       could be a manual page for the topic named.

       If you specify the  -M  pathlist  option,  pathlist  is  a
       colon-separated list of the directories that man searches.

       If you don't specify -M but set  the  MANPATH  environment
       variable,  the  value  of that variable is the list of the
       directories that man searches.

       If you don't specify an explicit path list with -M or MAN­
       PATH, man develops its own path list based on the contents
       of the configuration file  /etc/man.config.   The  MANPATH
       statements  in  the configuration file identify particular
       directories to include in the search path.

       Furthermore, the MANPATH_MAP statements add to the  search
       path depending on your command search path (i.e. your PATH
       environment variable).  For each directory that may be  in
       the command search path, a MANPATH_MAP statement specifies
       a directory that should be added to the  search  path  for

       adds the corresponding directories to the manual page file
       search  path.   Thus,  with the proper use of MANPATH_MAP,
       when you issue the command man xyz, you get a manual  page
       for  the  program that would run if you issued the command
       xyz.

       In addition, for each directory in the command search path
       (we'll call it a "command directory") for which you do not
       have a MANPATH_MAP statement, man automatically looks  for
       a  manual page directory "nearby" namely as a subdirectory
       in the command directory itself or in the parent directory
       of the command directory.

       You can disable the automatic "nearby" searches by includ­
       ing a NOAUTOPATH statement in /etc/man.config.

       In each directory in the search path as  described  above,
       man  searches  for  a  file  named  topic.section, with an
       optional suffix on the section number and possibly a  com­
       pression  suffix.  If it doesn't find such a file, it then
       looks in any subdirectories named manN or catN where N  is
       the  manual section number.  If the file is in a catN sub­
       directory, man assumes it is a formatted manual page  file
       (cat page).  Otherwise, man assumes it is unformatted.  In
       either case, if the filename has a known compression  suf­
       fix (like .gz), man assumes it is gzipped.

       If you want to see where (or if) man would find the manual
       page for a particular topic, use the --path (-w) option.


ENVIRONMENT

       MANPATH
              If MANPATH is set, man  uses  it  as  the  path  to
              search  for  manual  page  files.  It overrides the
              configuration file and the automatic  search  path,
              but is overridden by the -M invocation option.  See
              SEARCH PATH FOR MANUAL PAGES.

       MANPL  If MANPL is set, its value is used as  the  display
              page  length.   Otherwise, the entire man page will
              occupy one (long) page.

       MANROFFSEQ
              If MANROFFSEQ is set, its value is used  to  deter­
              mine  the  set  of preprocessors run before running
              nroff or  troff.   By  default,  pages  are  passed
              through the tbl preprocessor before nroff.

       MANSECT
              If  MANSECT  is set, its value is used to determine
              which manual sections to search.

              If MANWIDTH is set, its value is used as the  width
              manpages  should be displayed.  Otherwise the pages
              may be displayed  over  the  whole  width  of  your
              screen.

       MANPAGER
              If  MANPAGER  is set, its value is used as the name
              of the program to use to display the man page.   If
              not,  then  PAGER  is  used.  If  that has no value
              either, /usr/bin/less -isr is used.

       LANG   If LANG is set, its value defines the name  of  the
              subdirectory  where  man first looks for man pages.
              Thus, the command `LANG=dk man 1  foo'  will  cause
              man   to   look   for   the   foo   man   page   in
              .../dk/man1/foo.1, and if it  cannot  find  such  a
              file, then in .../man1/foo.1, where ... is a direc­
              tory on the search path.

       NLSPATH, LC_MESSAGES, LANG
              The environment variables NLSPATH  and  LC_MESSAGES
              (or  LANG  when  the  latter does not exist) play a
              role in locating the  message  catalog.   (But  the
              English  messages  are compiled in, and for English
              no catalog is required.)  Note that  programs  like
              col(1) called by man also use e.g. LC_CTYPE.

       PATH   PATH  helps  determine  the  search path for manual
              page files.  See SEARCH PATH FOR MANUAL PAGES.

       SYSTEM SYSTEM is used to get the default alternate  system
              name (for use with the -m option).


SEE ALSO

       apropos(1), whatis(1), less(1), groff(1), man.config(5).


BUGS

       The  -t  option  only  works  if  a  troff-like program is
       installed.
       If you see blinking \255 or <AD> instead of  hyphens,  put
       `LESSCHARSET=latin1' in your environment.


TIPS

       If you add the line

         (global-set-key [(f1)] (lambda () (interactive) (manual-
       entry (current-word))))

       to your .emacs file, then hitting F1 will give you the man
       page  for the library call at the current cursor position.

       To get a  plain  text  version  of  a  man  page,  without
       backspaces and underscores, try



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