All Questions
14
questions
-4
votes
1
answer
409
views
ps command: how does the '-q' option work?
According with the ps command, for the -q option
Through the man is indicated:
-q pidlist
Select by PID (quick mode). This selects the processes whose process ID numbers appear
in ...
- 1,786
1
vote
1
answer
214
views
How do you interpret this complicated man page syntax?
I am reading this on a man page:
[-n number-to-stat[:max-size[:min-size][:num-directories[:chunk-size]]]]
I interpret this as -n is optional but how do I specify the num-directories?
Preferably I ...
- 1,947
-1
votes
1
answer
236
views
apt-get man page weird flag
I just looked up the man page of apt-get via man apt-get and it shows me a weird flag in the synopsis section. It's the first one. Each x is a capitalized/uncapitalized character.
SYNOPSIS
apt-...
- 9
1
vote
1
answer
567
views
What is the use of n option in cut command?
I'm learning about the cut command. In the man page of cut, they show the -n option like:
-n (ignored)
But I didn't understand the usage of the n option or when we would use it. Can anyone ...
- 113
6
votes
2
answers
14k
views
What does grep -w do?
In here grep is used with the option -w. I did man grep and grep --help to try to find what the aforementioned option does. Neither output says anything about a -w option.
What does that option do? ...
0
votes
1
answer
758
views
How to use the man command to navigate to specific sections of the manual? [duplicate]
I would like to know if there are easier ways to navigate to specific sections of manual pages such as Examples or Options
I currently resort to piping man to regex find and retrieve statements.
For ...
- 335
14
votes
2
answers
9k
views
grepping for word starting with hyphen gives error: invalid option -- 't'
When I grep the man page of the find command for matches to type it returns a lot of search results that I don't want. Instead I want to use a command that returns only the search results for -type.
...
- 2,030
8
votes
2
answers
10k
views
What does ls -alh mean? [duplicate]
I have seen that people use ls -alh in the Linux terminal. However, when I see the manual, I don't see -alh (i.e. when I type man ls).
Why do I not have it in the manual? Can someone explain what it ...
- 1,369
3
votes
3
answers
714
views
How to read this tcpdump man page?
I am trying to use the tcpdump command in a project and I have some difficulties understanding the help page.
SYNOPSIS
tcpdump [ -AbdDefhgHIJKlLnNoOpPqRStuUvxX ] [ -B buffer_size ] [ -c
count ]
...
- 143
2
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Using apropos command with -a to search multiple keywords on CentOS 7
I'm running CentOS 7.0 build 1503. I'm trying to search for commands I don't know the name of by searching the man descriptions for multiple keywords using AND (e.g. search for a command containing ...
- 172
33
votes
8
answers
4k
views
Is there way to see `man` document only for specified option of a command
If I want to know the meaning of wget -b, I see the manual by man wget, then search the -b option.
-b
--background
Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is ...
- 5,265
1
vote
1
answer
102
views
How do I specify command invocation for a mandatory short or long option?
I'm writing a specification for a tool that needs a -f / --foo option with a mandatory argument BAR, so for example these are valid calls:
tool -f BAR
tool --foo BAR
How do I specify this syntax in ...
- 475
1
vote
1
answer
127
views
Can't search for flags in qalter's man page?
I was trying to find out what qalter's -r flag does, but I can't search for -r when viewing the man page for it (pattern not found). Yet it's clearly there. If you scroll down a bit you'll see it. Why ...
- 113
2
votes
1
answer
45
views
Correct way to document variable length options in man pages
Sometimes I see usage information like
some_utility [arg [arg [...]]]
or
some_utility [arg[, arg[...]]]
that indicates that you can pass more than one of the same argument.
I've also seen it like
...
- 571