[SOLVED] man pages

phillyfilly · 02-09-2014, 12:31 PM

What does it mean, in the man pages, for the end of the line to have a minus? man top - or man php -v -

Also what do these commands mean? Thanks.

chrism01 · 02-09-2014, 04:27 PM

Can you tells us what distro+version this is and post a copy of the exact page you're looking at.

On Centos , if I type 'man top' I get

Code:

TOP(1)                        Linux User’s Manual                       TOP(1)

NAME
       top - display Linux tasks

SYNOPSIS
       top -hv | -abcHimMsS -d delay -n iterations -p pid [, pid ...]

       The traditional switches ’-’ and whitespace are optional.

DESCRIPTION

etc

Shadow_7 · 02-09-2014, 04:49 PM

the - by itself on the cli is normally a substitute for /dev/stdin. Perhaps a legacy thing where a keyboard wasn't a given? Just a guess.

yooden · 02-10-2014, 05:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow_7

the - by itself on the cli is normally a substitute for /dev/stdin.

Except where it is not (bash(1), sh(1)). Check the manpage for the program in question.

yooden · 02-10-2014, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phillyfilly

What does it mean, in the man pages, for the end of the line to have a minus? man top - or man php -v -

If you would run the programs, the output would explain it to you. Why don't you do that before asking here?

Quote:

Also what do these commands mean? Thanks.

Which ones, top and php? Look at the manpages.