LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] man sections, meaning of each one.

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stf92

10-19-2010 10:08 AM

man sections, meaning of each one.

Hi:
Man pages are grouped by sections, each section bearing a number, starting from 1. E.g., a document may refer to ls(1). I once read, unfortunately I don't remember where, what each section is intended for. Could somebody please refer me to a source explaining this? Thanks.

colucix

10-19-2010 10:19 AM

Code:

man man

It's not a joke! The manual page of the man command gives the complete list of available sections.

sag47

10-19-2010 10:27 AM

If you

Code:

ls /usr/share/man

You'll see the different man[1-9] levels.

If you run

Code:

man man

Then the man page for man will break down the different levels for you.

stf92

10-19-2010 10:29 AM

Thanks for replying. I don't doubt it is so in your box but, in mine (slackware 12.0) it is not. No such list of available sections in tha manual page for 'man'.

sag47

10-19-2010 10:44 AM

Then vim /etc/manpath.conf. It will tell you the paths of the man pages on your system.

After googling around for man man I found a page which has the man levels listed.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ma...age%20Sections

colucix

10-19-2010 10:53 AM

Maybe slackware has not the section 1 man pages installed by default. You can find some documentation at the Linux man-pages project, here as well as the man pages online on various sites (as previously suggested). If you want the missing ones installed on your system, look for the man-pages package.

stf92

10-19-2010 11:01 AM

In /usr/share/man/HOWTOHELP I saw a reference to man-pages(7). Here is a list of sections 1 through 8 along with a description of the each section. And in HOWTOHELP itself, it says

Code:

SECTION 9 MAN PAGES

===================



These have nothing to with man-pages.  They are documentation

of in-kernel APIs, built from specially formatted comments in

the kernel source.  After installing the required software, these

pages can be built from a kernel source tree using the command

'make mandocs'; see the kernel source file Documentation/HOWTO

for more information.

My thanks to sag47 who gave me the path /usr/share/man, from where I made my way to 'man man-pages(7)'. Adieu.

brianL

10-19-2010 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stf92 (Post 4132575)

Thanks for replying. I don't doubt it is so in your box but, in mine (slackware 12.0) it is not. No such list of available sections in tha manual page for 'man'.

In 13.1, running man man, I get this list:

Code:

MANUAL SECTIONS

      The standard sections of the manual include:



      1      User Commands



      2      System Calls



      3      C Library Functions



      4      Devices and Special Files



      5      File Formats and Conventions



      6      Games et. Al.



      7      Miscellanea



      8      System Administration tools and Deamons

stf92

10-22-2010 08:38 PM

Thanks, gentle slacker.

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