.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" %sccs.include.redist.roff% .\" .\" @(#)man.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 06/06/93 .\" .Dd .Dt MAN 1 .Os BSD 4 .Sh NAME .Nm man .Nd display the on-line manual pages .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm man .Op Fl achw .Op Fl M Ar path .Op Fl m Ar path .Op Ar section .Ar name Ar ... .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm man utility displays the .Bx manual pages entitled .Ar name . .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl a Display all of the manual pages for a specified .Ar section and .Ar name combination. (Normally, only the first manual page found is displayed.) .It Fl c Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using .Xr more 1 to paginate it. This is done by default if the standard output is not a terminal device. .It Fl h Display only the .Dq Tn SYNOPSIS lines of the requested manual pages. .It Fl M Override the list of standard directories which .Nm man searches for manual pages. The supplied .Ar path must be a colon (``:'') separated list of directories. This search path may also be set using the environment variable .Ev MANPATH . The subdirectories to be searched as well as their search order is specified by the ``_subdir'' line in the .Nm man configuration file. .It Fl m Augment the list of standard directories which .Nm man searches for manual pages. The supplied .Ar path must be a colon (``:'') separated list of directories. These directories will be searched before the standard directories or the directories specified using the .Fl M option or the .Ev MANPATH environment variable. .It Fl w List the pathnames of the manual pages which .Nm man would display for the specified .Ar section and .Ar name combination. .El .Pp The optional .Ar section restricts the directories that .Nm man will search. The .Nm man configuration file (see .Xr man_conf 5 ) specifies the possible .Ar section values that are currently available. If only a single argument is specified or if the first argument is not a valid section, .Nm man assumes that the argument is the name of a manual page to be displayed. .Sh ENVIRONMENT .Bl -tag -width MANPATHX .It Ev MACHINE As some manual pages are intended only for use on certain architectures, .Nm man searches certain directories applicable to the current machine. Man's determination of the current machine type may be overridden by setting the environment variable .Ev MACHINE to the name of an architecture (see .Xr machine 1 ) . Machine specific areas are checked before general areas. .It Ev MANPATH The standard search path used by .Nm man may be overridden by specifying a path in the .Ev MANPATH environment variable. The format of the path is a colon (``:'') separated list of directories. The subdirectories to be searched as well as their search order is specified by the ``_subdir'' line in the .Nm man configuration file. .It Ev PAGER Any value of the environment variable .Ev PAGER will be used instead of the standard pagination program .Xr more 1 . .El .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width /etc/man.conf -compact .It Pa /etc/man.conf man configuration file (see .Xr man_conf 5 ) .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr apropos 1 , .Xr machine 1 , .Xr whatis 1 , .Xr whereis 1 , .Xr man_conf 5 .Sh BUGS The on-line manual pages are, by necessity, forgiving toward stupid display devices, causing some manual pages to not be as good as their typeset counterparts. .Sh HISTORY A .Nm command appeared in .At v6 .