Questions tagged [man]
'man' is a command for accessing documentation on Linux and other Unix and Unix-like systems.
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manpath abnormal: `man -k .` show duplication and partially missing in macOS
I got abnormal manpath in man -k . or apropos .:
duplicate shows:
$ man -k . | grep -w apropos
man(1), apropos(1), whatis(1) - display online manual documentation pages
man(1), apropos(1), whatis(1) -...
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Is there a `man/` equivalent of $PATH (which is for extra `bin/` directories)?
When I experimentally install some new software, I don't go through the extra effort of putting all assets in the right places like /usr/local/man.
Occasionally, I'd like to have manpage support for ...
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Where is there a manual page for Command Line Editing shortcuts?
There are times when I would like to respond to an already existing post, here specifically, because I want to figure out the source that these people are using for the answers. The answers in that ...
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MSYS2 man: can't open the manpath configuration file /etc/man_db.conf
I'm on Windows 10 but using bash and MSYS2 (mingw64). I just installed man using MSYS2. The problem is when typing a command like man echo (can be any command; it doesn't have to be echo), I get this ...
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How do I fix "E302: Could not rename swap file" when using neovim as my MANPAGER with a non-default swap directory?
I'd like to use neovim to view man pages. To accomplish this, I have the following set in my .bashrc file:
export MANPAGER='nvim +Man!'
On my MacOS system this gives me no problems. But on my Linux ...
- 429
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1
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897
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Update issue with mandb and makewhatis
When I change a given manpage, apropos and whatis do only reflect these changes when I perform the following steps:
store a copy of the manpage elsewhere and delete it in /usr/local/man/man1
run ...
- 11
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1
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308
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How do I convert manpages/info files to EPUB?
I like to read the manual pages on my e-reader. What is the best way to convert the manpages/info files into EPUBs?
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44
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Linux: test expression
How to use test to test a expression like this:
if { [ $month -eq 03 ] || [ $month -eq 10 ]; } && [ $weekday = "So" ] && [ $day -gt 24 ]
I need to test the whole if ...
- 123
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Bringing up all man page sections for a program at once
when I type man qmail I get No manual entry for qmail. I would like to be able to type man qmail and one screen opens up that includes all the man sections for qmail.
Is there a way I can open up ...
- 179
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39
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Is there an archive of man pages sorted by software version?
Is there a published archive of every man page for every (or at least the most common) linux utilities across all the different versions of said utilities?
My use case is I'm trying to figure out when ...
- 235
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"WARNING: terminal is not fully functional" when using "man" as root
I know that this question has been posted a zillion times, but none of the answers I could find have solved it for me.
I have a root shell given by sudo bash. When I try to use man, I have this ...
- 155
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196
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rsync - list all options alphabetically?
I'm just starting to get acquainted with rsync... it has hundreds of options, both short (single-dash) and long (double-dash).
The man pages don't list these alphabetically, either under "OPTIONS ...
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Running `whatis cd` always returns "nothing appropriate" on Ubuntu 18.04
I was just playing around with the whatis command. For some reason, whenever I run whatis cd, I get cd: nothing appropriate. What does this mean? Why is this? It seems there is no man entry for cd ...
- 121
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Is there a download option for the documentation and tutorials at https://perldoc.perl.org/5.30.0? (Windows user)
I want the documentation and probably the tutorials saved locally on my computer, as usually I only have a 64 kbit/s internet connection. I'm working on Windows 10.
At perlfaq1.html#AUTHOR-AND-...
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Why is manpath acting abnormally?
I am currently attempting to add a custom man page to /usr/local/man for the binary in /usr/local/bin. However, the expected behavior differs from my interpretation of the manual. As well as the ...
- 11
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Creating a new section of man pages
I have obtained man pages for the GNU Fortran intrinsic procedures (link). After cloning the repo, the man pages themselves are in a directory ~/Documents/fortran-man-pages/man3f, and each one is a ...
- 101
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What are these '3cxx' man pages, and how can I remove/exclude them from man invocations?
This all started because I wanted man pages on C++ types/functions. I found a repository called Cppman that was designed to scrape these pages from either cplusplus or cppreference. At this point man ...
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2
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What does `LESS=+/EXAMPLE\:` mean?
In man parallel_tutorial (for GNU parallel) I’ve found the following black magic:
LESS=+/EXAMPLE\: man parallel
Searching around in the man pages for man, less, and bash, it appears this may have ...
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What does "wc --files0-from=F" mean in linux command
I read the manual of wc command but could not understand the explanation of this parameter. Please help.
The official explanation is below:
--files0-from=F
read input from the files specified by NUL-...
- 198
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2
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View man pages via Emacs
I basically want what this question asks for. Unfortunately, its answers don't work.
For example, when I do what its most-upvoted answer says, and enter man echo, Emacs opens up and the mini buffer ...
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man <whatever> opens vim with hidden characters displayed
I'm on Mac/Sierra using MacVim. When I run man MacVim (I have alias vim="mvim" set in my .bashrc) I get the man page with hidden whitepace characters displayed.
This only happens for man pages (I ...
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345
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Determining default qualification thresholds for ntpstat
I have been looking into the ntpstat command, more specifically how it determines whether or not the clock is synchronized. From the man page, I see the following excerpt:
ntpstat returns 0 if clock ...
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704
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How to read PowerShell Documentation Syntax
I could use a good explanation of PowerShell Documentation Syntax:
> man Update-Help
SYNTAX
Update-Help [[-Module] <string[]>] [[-SourcePath] <string[]>] [[-UICulture] <...
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Open a protected file form within man page/less?
I was reading the man page for firewalld.service and I wanted to open up the service.xml from within the man page (which I believe is less).
I know :e would do the job if I had permissions, but ...
- 1,955
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3
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4k
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What does `grep -1` do?
I'm trying to make sense of the following shell command, to get a list of packages that can be updated:
dpkg --get-selections | xargs apt-cache policy {} | grep -1 Installed | sed -r 's/(:|Installed: ...
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What does "sw" option mean in /etc/fstab?
In my Ubuntu 14.04 /etc/fstab, I have following line:
UUID=e4YGg1-2bHU-Ylum-3FwK-MK3s-1Fjf-ZvQEh2 none swap sw 0 0
Which seems pretty current for swap.
I can't ...
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115
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What is the difference between $man and man on a mac
On a terminal, the commands $man and man seem to do slightly different things.
For example $man open vs. man open. It looks like $man is the same as man except it prints the output directly instead ...
- 113
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154
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MANPATH not set on Scientic Linux 5.5
On a Scientific Linux 5.5 installation the $MANPATH is not set. I've got environment modules installed, this might cause an overwriting of the $MANPATH, but I'm not sure about that. So my main ...
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Man pages are outdated
Background:
I recently learned about the mv -t flag option in bash, but when I checked the man pages on my computer, there was no mention of it. The man pages were dated 9 July 2002. I ssh-ed into ...
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show man pages in terminal without a pager
man defaults to using a pager. For short pages, I want to just echo them to the terminal without paging. I'm on OS X. Things I've tried:
man -t man #produces PostScript output
man ...
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How to read the man page for git revert?
When I do a man git revert, I get the man page for git:
NAME
git - the stupid content tracker
SYNOPSIS
git [--version] [--help] [-C <path>] [-c <name>=<value>]
...
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434
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Linux “man” pages appear as gibberish in CentOS
On my CentOS 6 box, all the man pages and some tools that support --help show gibberish. For example, if I type:
man man
I get this:
^HZ[wã¸~ǯÀjZÊèvg:=3ÌlËm’¾¤ÞÎl<;HHBL´Z}òãSe{l?´)B¡ê«¯ ...
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What are the license(s) of the Linux man pages?
What is the license on the Linux man pages? GPL, Public Domain, etc? The Wikipedia page about the man doesn't appear to have any info about the licensing status of the man pages.
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How to install manpages on FreeNAS 9.3?
I'm having enourmous trouble installing manpages on FreeNAS 9.3 (based on FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE-p15). I tried:
installing pc-sysinstall from ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-9.2-...
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3k
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How to parse man pages in Windows?
Here is a raw man page. Is there a way I can parse it under Windows to make it more readable?
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What is the most effective way to fix content in older linux manpages like traceroute?
Today I was reading through the manpage for traceroute when I came across this passage:
"There is a couple of additional options, intended for an advanced usage (another trace methods etc.):"
I ...
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3
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218
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Access man page for package?
After installing the gcc-arm-none-eabi package on Ubuntu, I can't find the tools or the manpage even though it appears the documentation is available:
$ find /usr/ -iname gcc*
/usr/bin/gcc
...
/usr/...
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1
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83
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What does it mean in the man page of shutdown that Requests that the system be halted after it has been brought down?
Today when I was reading the man page of shutdown, it made me confused a lot. Take -H as example. I just could not understand the "after it has been brought down". What does it specify exactly? What ...
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Where's the man page for the `sizeof` C function?
How come there's no man page for the sizeof C function?
$ man 3 sizeof
No manual entry for sizeof in section 3
$ man sizeof
No manual entry for sizeof
I do see man pages for other C functions like ...
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2k
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Open man page using nano
I want to open man pages in another text editor, in this case "nano". Does anyone know how I can achieve this please?
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What does the number quoted in parentheses mean in man page of some command? [duplicate]
In the Mac OS X Mavericks terminal, inside frisk man page, there is:
SEE ALSO
cfdisk(8), sfdisk(8), mkfs(8), parted(8), partprobe(8), kpartx(8)
Does it mean see also the eighth cfdisk or ...
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man --html - Not showing tables?
I recently discovered man --html, and am quite giddy with joy at being able to navigate the docs locally in a browser at a whim.
However, it seems like certain objects, such as tables, are not ...
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No manual entry for make
I'm trying to read man pages for make on my server and they are not there. Man pages for other linux commands and built-ins, however, are there.
Does anyone know why this is and how to fix?
Thanks.
...
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3
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3k
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Cygwin: man no longer works
I have cygwin installed in the default folder (C:\cygwin) on Windows 7 Pro. Up until a few months ago (not sure how long), man pages worked fine. Then came an update, and now man anything displays ...
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How do I see aptitude "Search patterns"? (~n, ~i, ~U,..)
While opening man aptitude I see this in many places:
(see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).
How do I open this reference manual? I want to find patterns like ~i (...
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Search if program is installed for a particular purpose (Linux)
So, I am using Ubuntu 12.04.4 and I wonder if there is a program for opening PDF-files installed. I find that evince is installed in the system (by googling), and I stop to think if this can be done ...
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447
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How to list installed man pages and search in many mans?
I am frustrated that to use man I need to know the exact name of the topic, and usually I need to search on Internet before I can open the man page. How to list installed man pages? How to search for ...
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web-based interactive MAN pages [closed]
So, there was this website where you type a unix command and it would break the command into its arguments explaining what does what. I suppose it was based on MAN, but I'm not sure.
I lost the ...
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179
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What does man [-acdfFhkKtwW] mean?
I am fairly new to using the OSX terminal, so before I move forward, I want to get good at finding information out for myself. So, I was reading about the manpages about manpages, and I saw that I ...
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Search which man sections contain a given entry
On Linux (or any other OS that uses the man tool), there are typically several sections of the manual. Often, a given entry (such as echo or printf) exists in multiple sections, but not all of them. ...
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