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Edited (4f18dd0) at 2023-07-07 by Dylan Araps
MAN PAGES
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A man page (short for manual page) is a form of software documentation usually
found on a Unix or Unix-like operating systems. Topics covered include computer
programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions,
and even abstract concepts. A user may invoke a man page by issuing the man
command. [0]
The man utility
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The 'mandoc' [1] package is the default provider of the 'man' utility.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Install mandoc |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| $ kiss b mandoc |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
By default, man typically uses a terminal pager program such as more or less to
display its output. This can be configured via the $PAGER environment variable.
Linux manuals
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The Linux man-pages project [2] documents the Linux kernel and C library
interfaces that are employed by user-space programs.
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| Install man-pages |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| $ kiss b man-pages |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
POSIX manuals
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These are pages from POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1. Since TC1 appeared
in 2013, it is also known as POSIX.1-2013. The man pages contain descriptions of
the headers, the utilities, and the functions documented in that standard.
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| Install man-pages-posix |
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| |
| $ kiss b man-pages-posix |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
References
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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page
[1] https://mandoc.bsd.lv/
[2] https://kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
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Dylan Araps (C) 2019-2021
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