Difference between revisions of "Manual"

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When someone tells you to run "man 6 tetris", that means that you should read the tetris manpage found in section 6 of the manpages.  Sometimes the same manpage name exists, but in different sections. One example is the fstat manpage it exists in sections 1 and 2.  The lower number sections take precedence over higher numbered sections.  Thus, to see the manpage for fstat in section 2 you would type:
 
When someone tells you to run "man 6 tetris", that means that you should read the tetris manpage found in section 6 of the manpages.  Sometimes the same manpage name exists, but in different sections. One example is the fstat manpage it exists in sections 1 and 2.  The lower number sections take precedence over higher numbered sections.  Thus, to see the manpage for fstat in section 2 you would type:
 
  $ man 2 fstat
 
  $ man 2 fstat
 +
 +
Similarely functions, [[syscalls]] or commands are sometimes mentioned with the section of manpages in brackets behind them like so:  '''fstat(2)''', you'll see this mentioned a lot in this wiki.

Revision as of 03:24, 10 October 2005

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
Library functions, especially for C and Tk
Section 4
Special files and hardware support
Section 5
File formats, especially configuration files
Section 6
Games
Section 7
Miscellaneous information pages
Section 8
System maintenance and operation commands
Section 9
Kernel internals


When someone tells you to run "man 6 tetris", that means that you should read the tetris manpage found in section 6 of the manpages. Sometimes the same manpage name exists, but in different sections. One example is the fstat manpage it exists in sections 1 and 2. The lower number sections take precedence over higher numbered sections. Thus, to see the manpage for fstat in section 2 you would type:

$ man 2 fstat

Similarely functions, syscalls or commands are sometimes mentioned with the section of manpages in brackets behind them like so: fstat(2), you'll see this mentioned a lot in this wiki.