man

man linux command cheatsheet by Thamizhiniyan C S

Introduction

The man command is used to display the command / program's documentation / manual page.

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Syntax

man [man options] [[section] page ...] ...
man -k [apropos options] regexp ...
man -K [man options] [section] term ...
man -f [whatis options] page ...
man -l [man options] file ...
man -w|-W [man options] page ...

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Sections of the man page

Section	Contents of the section
1	User commands
2	Programming interfaces for kernel system calls
3	Programming interfaces to the C library
4	Special files such as device nodes and drivers
5	File formats
6	Games and amusements such as screen savers
7	Miscellaneous
8	System administration commands

Important Flags

Flag	Description
-f, –whatis	Display a concise one-line description of the command.
-k, –apropos	Search for commands related to a given keyword.
-a, –all	Display all matching manual pages for the specified command.
Spacebar	Move forward one page in the manual.
Enter	Move forward one line in the manual.
B	Move backward one page in the manual.
Q	Quit the manual viewer.

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Examples

Command	Description
man [SECTION-NUM] [COMMAND NAME]	In the man command manuals, sections are used to categorize different types of information. You can specify a section number to display only the relevant section of a manual.
man -f [COMMAND NAME]	One may not be able to remember the sections in which a command is present. So this option gives the section in which the given command is present.
man -a [COMMAND NAME]	This option helps us to display all the available intro manual pages in succession.
man -k [COMMAND NAME]	The -k option in the man command allows you to search for a command as a regular expression across all manual pages, returning a list of matching entries along with their section numbers.
man -w [COMMAND NAME]	The -w option in the man command returns the location of the manual page for a given command. This is useful for finding where the manual pages are stored on the system.
man -I [COMMAND NAME]	The -I option in the man command makes the search case-sensitive, ensuring that the command name is considered with exact case.
man cd	To view the Manual for “cd” Command Using man Command
man -k file	Searching for Commands Related to “file” Using man Command
man -f ls	To Display a One-Line Description of “ls” Using man Command