Linux man page entries | different types (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 31 Mar, 2018

The man page(manual page) is a documentation manual of different commands available in unix or unix like operating systems. To check manual entry for any command use, man command_nameIn this article, I'm using command printf for my demonstrations.

man printf

Output:

PRINTF(1) User Commands PRINTF(1)

NAME printf - format and print data

SYNOPSIS printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]... printf OPTION

DESCRIPTION Print ARGUMENT(s) according to FORMAT, or execute according to OPTION:

   --help display this help and exit

   --version
          output version information and exit

   FORMAT controls the output as in C printf.  Interpreted sequences are:

   \"     double quote

   \\     backslash

   \a     alert (BEL)

...

If you observe carefully the above output, the top line contains PRINTF(1), the 1 in braces is type of man entry. The number basically corresponds to section of the manual page. The manual is split into 8 sections, which are(on Research Unix, BSD, macOS and Linux):

Let's continue with the example of PRINTF, for all entries, try below command:

man -a printf

Output:

PRINTF(1) User Commands PRINTF(1)

NAME printf - format and print data

SYNOPSIS printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]... printf OPTION

DESCRIPTION Print ARGUMENT(s) according to FORMAT, or execute according to OPTION:

   --help display this help and exit

   --version
          output version information and exit

   FORMAT controls the output as in C printf.  Interpreted sequences are:

   \"     double quote

...

When you type q to exit, the below text appears on terminal, press enter to continue to see another entry of printf

--Man-- next: printf(3) [ view (return) | skip (Ctrl-D) | quit (Ctrl-C) ]

Output continued:

PRINTF(3) Linux Programmer's Manual PRINTF(3)

NAME printf, fprintf, dprintf, sprintf, snprintf, vprintf, vfprintf, vdprintf, vsprintf, vsnprintf - formatted output conversion

SYNOPSIS #include

   int printf(const char *format, ...);
   int fprintf(FILE *stream, const char *format, ...);
   int dprintf(int fd, const char *format, ...);
   int sprintf(char *str, const char *format, ...);
   int snprintf(char *str, size_t size, const char *format, ...);

   #include 

   int vprintf(const char *format, va_list ap);
   int vfprintf(FILE *stream, const char *format, va_list ap);

...

To check specific entry to printf or any other command, you can directly provide section number, for example:

man 3 printf

Output: It will show man entry corresponding to section 3 of printf. Some useful man command options: 1) -f option

man -f printf

Output: It will display the short description of printf, if available similar to

printf - format and print data

1. -k option

man -k printf

Output: It will search the short manual page descriptions for keywords and display any matches.

printf (1) - format and print data printf (1p) - write formatted output printf (3) - formatted output conversion printf (3p) - print formatted output printf [builtins] (1) - bash built-in commands, see bash(1)

1. -w optionIt prints the location of cat files that will be displayed rather than the content of files.

man -w printf

Output:

/usr/share/man/man1/printf.1.gz

1. -K optionIt will search for text in all manual pages.

man -K printf

Output: It will display all man entries containing printf keyword, and after each entry is display you can press enter for viewing second entry. For example: The below is prompted to view second entry for printf, you can either skip it or quit to terminate the command.

--Man-- next: git-show(1) [ view (return) | skip (Ctrl-D) | quit (Ctrl-C) ]

**References :**1) wiki/Man_page2) Man entry of man