MAN(1)                     OpenBSD Reference Manual                     MAN(1)

NAME
     man - display the on-line manual pages

SYNOPSIS
     man [-achw] [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [-s section] [-S subsection]
         [section] name [...]
     man -k keyword
     man -f filename

DESCRIPTION
     The man utility displays the BSD manual pages entitled name.

     The options are as follows:

     -k      Locate man pages matching keyword in much the same way as apro-
             pos(1) works (in fact, it runs apropos(1) for you).  This can be
             used to find which man page applies to a particular subsystem you
             are interested in, for instance

             man -k mount

             will list all man-pages which contain your keyword in the NAME
             line of the man page; in this case a list much like this:

             amd (8) - automatically mount file systems
             amq (8) - automounter query tool
             mount (8) - mount file systems
             mount, unmount (2) - mount or dismount a filesystem
             mount_ados (8) - mount an AmigaDOS file system
             mount_cd9660 (8) - mount an ISO-9660 filesystem
             mount_ext2fs (8) - mount a ext2fs file system
             mount_fdesc (8) - mount the file-descriptor file system
             mount_ffs, mount_ufs (8) - mount a Berkeley Fast File System
             mount_kernfs (8) - mount the /kern file system
             mount_procfs (8) - mount the process file system
             mount_umap (8) - sample file system layer
             mount_union (8) - mount union filesystems
             mount_xfs (8) - mount the xfs filesystem
             mount_xfs (8) - mount the xfs filesystem.
             mountd (8) - service remote NFS mount requests
             newfs, mount_mfs (8) - construct a new file system
             umount (8) - unmount file systems
             ...

     -a      Display all of the manual pages for a specified section and name
             combination.  (Normally, only the first manual page found is dis-
             played.)

     -C file
             Use the specified file instead of the default configuration file.
             This permits users to configure their own manual environment.
             See man.conf(5) for a description of the contents of this file.

     -c      Copy the manual page to the standard output instead of using
             more(1) to paginate it.  This is done by default if the standard
             output is not a terminal device.

     -h      Display only the ``SYNOPSIS'' lines of the requested manual
             pages.

     -M path
             Override the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (`:') separated
             list of directories.  This search path may also be set using the
             environment variable MANPATH. The subdirectories to be searched,
             and their search order, is specified by the ``_subdir'' line in
             the man configuration file.

     -m path
             Augment the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (`:') separated
             list of directories.  These directories will be searched before
             the standard directories or the directories specified using the
             -M option or the MANPATH environment variable.  The subdirecto-
             ries to be searched, and their search order, is specified by the
             ``_subdir'' line in the man configuration file.

     -s section
             Another way of specifying the section, for compatibility with man
             on other operating systems.

     -S subsection
             Specifies the machine-dependent subsection.  This overrides the
             MACHINE environment variable.  See the ENVIRONMENT section below.

     -w      List the pathnames of the manual pages which man would display
             for the specified section and name combination.

     -f      Locate man pages matching the command in much the same way
             whatis(1) works.

     The optional section argument restricts the directories that man will
     search.  The man configuration file (see man.conf(5)) specifies the pos-
     sible section values that are currently available.  If only a single ar-
     gument is specified or if the first argument is not a valid section, man
     assumes that the argument is the name of a manual page to be displayed.

ENVIRONMENT
     The following environment variables affect the execution of man:

     MACHINE   As some manual pages are intended only for specific architec-
               tures, man searches any subdirectories, with the same name as
               the current architecture, in every directory which it searches.
               Machine specific areas are checked before general areas.  The
               current machine type may be overridden by setting the environ-
               ment variable MACHINE to the name of a specific architecture.

     MANPATH   The standard search path used by man may be overridden by spec-
               ifying a path in the 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 man configuration
               file.

     PAGER     Any non-null value of the environment variable PAGER will be
               used instead of the standard pagination program, more(1).

FILES
     /etc/man.conf  default man configuration file

SEE ALSO
     apropos(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), man.conf(5)

HISTORY
     A man command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

BUGS
     The on-line manual pages are, by necessity, forgiving toward stupid dis-
     play devices, causing a few manual pages to be not as nicely formatted as
     their typeset counterparts.

OpenBSD 2.9                      March 9, 1998                               2
