.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\" @(#)man.1 6.11 (Berkeley) %G%
man \- display the on-line manual pages
man [ -acw ] [ -M path ] [ -m path ] [ section ] name ...
displays the UNIX manual pages entitled
The options are as follows:
Display all of the manual pages for a specified
(Normally, only the first manual page found is displayed.)
Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using
This is done by default if the standard output is not a terminal device.
Override the list of standard directories which
searches for manual pages.
must be a colon (``:'') separated list of directories.
This search path may also be set using the environment variable
The subdirectories to be searched as well as their search order
is specified by the ``_subdir'' line in the
Augment the list of standard directories which
searches for manual pages.
must be a colon (``:'') separated list of directories.
These directories will be searched before the standard directories or
the directories specified using the
List the pathnames of the manual pages which
would display for the specified
restricts the directories that
values that are currently available.
If only a single argument is specified or if the first argument is
assumes that the argument is the name of a manual page to be displayed.
As some manual pages are intended only for use on certain architectures,
searches certain directories applicable to the current machine.
determination of the current machine type may be overridden by setting
the environment variable MACHINE to the name of an architecture (see
Machine specific areas are checked before general areas.
The standard search path used by
may be overridden by specifying a path in the MANPATH environment
The format of the path is a colon (``:'') separated list of directories.
The subdirectories to be searched as well as their search order
is specified by the ``_subdir'' line in the
Any value of the environment variable
will be used instead of the standard pagination program
/etc/man.conf man configuration file (see
apropos(1), machine(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), man_conf(5)
The on-line manual pages are, by necessity, forgiving toward stupid
display devices, causing some manual pages to not be as good as their