Using the On-Line Unix Manual
Social Science Computing, University of Pennsylvania
Using the On-Line Unix Manual
On the Unix system, there is an on-line manual that is available simply
by typing man and the name of the command or subject that you want
information about. Doing so will display manual entries on-line.
Example:
To obtain information about the copy command, enter:
man cp
Description
The man command provides information on various reference articles,
such as commands, subroutines, and files. The man command can provide
one-line descriptions of commands that are specified by name, or it can
provide information on all commands whose descriptions contain a set of
user-specified keywords.
To continue scrolling by page, press the space bar.
To scroll an additional 11 lines when the output stops, press the
Ctrl-D key sequence.
To terminate the entire man process, use Ctrl-C.
Options:
It is possible to do a search on manual materials using the man command
plus either the -k or appropos options:
man -k cp
apropos cp
These commands will display all manual documents that contain the
references to the cp command.
For more information about the on-line UNIX manual and other options
when using this command, type man man.
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