Unix manual page
<operating system> (Or "man page") A part of
Unix's extensive on-line documentation.
To read a manual page, type
man [-s<section>] <page>
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 (http://www.foldoc.org/man.cgi).
A Solaris man gateway (http://www.medsch.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/pdm/man.pl).
