man Command – Manual of Linux Commands Part 2

Syntax for a particular section:

$ man <section_number> <keyword>

For Example:

$ man 2 passwd

man Command Options

  1. man -aw
    List all available sections of a command.
  2. man -a
    To view all man pages of a command.
  3. man -k (apropos)
    Shows a list of results in the man page containing a keyword match.
  4. whatis
    It displays a description from the manual page if available.
  5. whereis
    Used to determine location of a man page

Linux man -a

Linux man –a command shows all the man page sections of a particular topic. The sections will come in ascending order, that is, the lowest section number will come first.

To visit next section press ‘q’ and then Enter.

Lets test the command ‘man -a chmod’. We know that chmod has two sections (1) and (2).

Linux command chmod section 1 man page will appear first as shown below.

To got the next section press q followed by the Enter key and we’ll be redirected to the below page of section 2.

Linux man -aw

The -w options returns all locations where the manual is present.

Linux man -f

The -f option shows the section where the given command is present.

Linux man -k (apropos)

The -k options searches the command in all manuals and returns the pages.

For example:

Linux whereis -m

This command is used to find the location of a man page.

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