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List tools that have "man" pages.

Hi,

"Man" pages are a handy help when one knows the name of the tool. However, in my old age I often forget the exact name of the tool. It should be possible to list all man pages and sift it trough a "grep" filter and thus find the exact name of the tool that one is trying to recall. For instance, when the partitions have been created with their file systems, reiserfstune is a handy tool that I use to set label (volume) names for the partitions with reiser FS. There is a similar tool for ext3 FS, but what is its name? I remember that it, too, has "tune" in its name. I also know that both of these tools have a "man" page.

My problem is that I do not know of a way to list in CLI names of commands which have "man" pages, so I could then filter the list trough grep.

It surely must be possible and easy. In Konqueror, an entry man:/<start of a name> shows the list of commands with man pages in a drop down list. Since it is done in GUI, it should be possible in CLI.

Actually, with Konqueror I can find the command name for ext3 files, which is "tune2fs", but I would like to know a way to search for it in CLI.

Any clues? TIA!

OldAl, Canberra in winter .

Could you maybe use apropos to search for commands with a keyword, e.g. "apropos ext3" (instead of using grep I mean)? I believe the command you're looking for is tune2fs.

Thank you, Nylex. Actually

Code:

apropos tune |grep fs

does exactly what I want. Generally it would be better if before answering a question the question was read more thoroughly - I've deliberately did state that the command I was looking for is tune2fs (for ext2/ext3 file systems), so that actually I was not looking for the command, but for a way of finding a command with CLI when only a part of a command is known (or recalled).

Thanks for jolting my memory, Nylex - apropos is indeed the answer.

In addition to apropos, have a try at

Code:

man -k tune |grep fs

and read

Code:

man grep

to get it tuned better.

Apropos and man -k outputs look the same to me now, but if I remember correctly, there can be cases where their outputs differ (the other shows more or less than the other). It can just be me, but I have a picture they're not 100% the same.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldAl

Generally it would be better if before answering a question the question was read more thoroughly - I've deliberately did state that the command I was looking for is tune2fs (for ext2/ext3 file systems)

That part wasn't there when I read your post the first time and I *did* read the entire thing.

Well, Nylex, we are not going to argue about you reading it all in the first place. Let me just say, that I wrote it once and did not edit it afterwards, so whatever is in my post, it has been there since the first posting. May I suggest that you did not pay attention to what you read?

Anyway, your suggestion was very valuable and I gratefully acknowledge that with a big THANK YOU!

Quote:

Originally Posted by b0uncer

In addition to apropos, have a try at

Code:

man -k tune |grep fs

Thank you for the great alternative to apropos. Actually, the above returns only the two commands that are applicable, so no further tuning of grep is necessary.

I learned a lot from the two replies - gratefully yours,

I know that this is kind of a necro post since the topic is totally solved, but when I first saw this question I did '%~ man man' and found the -k switch from there

Quote:

Originally Posted by krazytekn0

I know that this is kind of a necro post since the topic is totally solved, but when I first saw this question I did '%~ man man' and found the -k switch from there

Thank you for your contribution. It is always useful to know not just the answer, but how the answer was arrived at!

Kind regards,

Here is an alternative :)

findman.sh:

Code:

#!/bin/bash



manlist="$(tr ':' '\n' <<<"$MANPATH" | grep -v '^$')"

if [ -z "$manlist" ]; then

  manlist="$(tr ':' '\n' <<<"$PATH" | sed -n 's#/bin$#/man#p; s#/man$#/share/man#p')"

fi



while read p; do

  find "$p" "$@" 2>/dev/null

done <<<"$manlist"

Use like this, using the "find" command options:

Code:

./findman.sh -iname '*ext3*'

or

./findman.sh -regex '.*/man1/.*conf.*'

Yves.

Quote:

Originally Posted by theYinYeti

Here is an alternative :)

Indeed :). Nice and "simple". Its like using a Sherman tank to get the grandkids to school.

Thanks for your attention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldAl

Indeed :). Nice and "simple". Its like using a Sherman tank to get the grandkids to school.

Thanks for your attention.

What should I not be doing that? My tank will miss me.