< operating system > (Or "man page") A part of Unix 's extensive on-line documentation. To read a manual page, type
man [-s ]
at a shell prompt, e.g. "man ftp" (the section number can usually be omitted). Pages are traditionally referred to using the notation "page(section)", e.g. ftp(1).
Under SunOS (which is fairly typical), Section 1 covers commands, 2 system calls , 3 C library routines, 4 devices and networks, 5 file formats, 6 games and demos , 7 miscellaneous, 8 system administration. Each section has an introduction which can be obtained with, e.g., "man 2 intro".
Manual pages are stored as nroff source files. Formatted versions are also usually cached.
Unix manual page : man(1).
A Linux man gateway .
A Solaris man gateway .
(2000-03-13)