Online Computer Dictionary

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Queried for: Unix manual pages  About Unix manual pages

Definition:

(Or "man page") A part of Unix's extensive on-line documentation. To read a manual page, type man [-s

] at a shell prompt, e.g. "man ftp" (the section number can usually be omitted). Pages are traditionally referred to using the notation "page(section)", e.g. ftp(1).

Under SunOS (which is fairly typical), Section 1 covers commands, 2 system calls, 3 C library routines, 4 devices and networks, 5 file formats, 6 games and demos, 7 miscellaneous, 8 system administration. Each section has an introduction which can be obtained with, e.g., "man 2 intro".

Manual pages are stored as nroff source files. Formatted versions are also usually cached.

Unix manual page: man(1).

{A Linux man gateway (http://foldoc.org/man.cgi.

{A Solaris man gateway (http://medsch.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/pdm/man.pl.