How is 'man 3 printf' different from 'man printf' ??

purpleburple · 09-21-2002, 03:23 PM

Hi. I noticed someone referring someone to type > 'man 3 printf' to find out about that command. Just wondering .... I noticed that man 3's title is 'linux programmers manual'. How is this different from just plain old 'man printf'?

thanks.

P.S. Is there some type of Master Index of the Linux programmers manual?

geoffm33 · 09-21-2002, 04:22 PM

From what I remember:

Section 2 of the man pages are for system calls

Section 3 of hte man pages are for C Library functions

Anything in the default man page section is probably just generic overview/usage information.

So, 'man 3 printf' is the C Library function specific info for printf.

AltF4 · 09-21-2002, 06:39 PM

$ man man

[....]

1 Executable programs or shell commands
2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
3 Library calls (functions within system libraries)
4 Special files (usually found in /dev)
5 File formats and conventions eg /etc/passwd
6 Games
7 Macro packages and conventions eg man(7), groff(7).
8 System administration commands (usually only for root)
9 Kernel routines [Non standard]

[...]

purpleburple · 09-23-2002, 12:29 AM

thnaks guys