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| Newer page: | version 3 | Last edited on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 12:07:09 pm | by BenStaz | Revert |
| Older page: | version 2 | Last edited on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 11:48:46 am | by BenStaz | Revert |
@@ -1,4 +1,30 @@
+!Must Read
+
+I think a lot of people use the man command without knowing they can specify a section number to get better information.
+
+For example a person without the knowledge of man sections may want to know the structure of the 'passwd' file and type 'man passwd'. They receive a page telling them all about the 'passwd' command and they assume the information they seek is not available using man, when really it is.
+
+Thanks to : http://www.linux-tutorial.info
+
+When referring to a particular command in Linux documentation, you very often will see the name followed by a letter or number in parenthesis, such as ls(1). This indicates that the ls command can be found in section 1 of the man-pages. This dates back to the time when man-pages came in books (as they often still do). By including the section, you could more quickly find what you were looking for.
+
+For a list of what sections are available, see the table below or the man man-page. If you are looking for the man-page of a particular command and know what section it is in, it is often better to specify the section. Sometimes there are multiple man-pages in different sections. For example, the passwd man-page in section 1 lists the details of the passwd command. The passwd man-page in section 5, lists the details of the /etc/passwd file. Therefore,if you wanted the man-page on the passwd file, you would use:
+
+*man 5 passwd
+
+Here is a list of the sections and a brief description of what can be found in each section:
+
+1) Commands, Utilities and other executable programs, which are typically user-related
+2) System calls
+3) Library calls
+4) Special files, typically device files in /dev
+5) File formats and their respective conventions, layout
+6) Games
+7) Macro packages
+8) System administration commands
+9) Kernel routines
+
!Not happy with your default man viewer?
Then change it! This is easily done by setting the 'PAGER' environment variable.
