Manual

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Most UNIX systems have online manual pages. The types of manpages have sections which they are grouped in. Here is the layout of BSD:


section 1

general commands (tools and utilities)

section 2

system calls and error numbers

section 3

the C libraries

section 4

special files and hardware support

section 5

file formats

section 6

the games

section 7

miscellaneous information pages

section 8

system maintenance and operation commands

section 9

kernel internals


When someone says to you "man 6 tetris" he means that you should read the tetris manpage in section 6 of the manpages. Sometimes the same name manpage exist but in different sections, one example is the fstat manpage it exists in sections 1 and 2. To see the manpage for fstat in section 2 you would type

$ man 2 fstat