man: Manual Pages

man man_page
or
man -k key_word

where man_page is either a command, or a special file. man then displays documentation on the standard output, one screenful at a time. To see the next screenful, press the space bar (man works very similarly to the more command with a reduced functionality).

key_word is a keyword that is found in the description of a man_page. When

man -k key_word

is issued, all commands which will be listed contain in their description, the word key_word.

man pages are typically divided into eight sections; some Linux distributions may have a 9th one, specifically for kernel routines (very rarely used; its man pages even say section 9 is "obsolete"!).

The following table illustrates most man page sections on a Sun (mostly Berkeley based), on a Silicon Graphics (System V based) system, and on the SuSE 7.3 and Red-Hat 7.2 linux distribution:

Table 6.1: Sun, SGI and Linux man page sections.

Content	SUN	SGI	Linux
User commands.	1	1	1
Administrative commands.	1M	1M	8
System calls.	2	2	2
C routines.	3	3C	3
Fortran routines.	3	3F	3
Graphics routines.	N/A	3G	N/A
Streams routines.	3V	3S	3
X11 routines.	3	3X11	3
Audio routines.	N/A	3A	N/A
Special files.	4	7	4
Configuration files.	5	4	5
Games.	6	N/A	6
Demos.	6	6D	N/A
Maintenance.	8	8	8

Table content based on [4, p. 56].