Support for Full-Text Searching of Man Pages

To support full-text searching of man pages, the man command has been enhanced to include a new -K (uppercase) option that enables you to search for specific keywords throughout all of the sections in all of the man pages. The -K option works similarly to the -k (lowercase) option, with the exception that the -k option is limited to searching only the NAME subsection of all of the man page sections. The new -K option is useful for locating information about how a command is used in a variety of contexts.

The -k and -K options of the man command utilize index files for searching. To support the autogeneration of new index files as man pages are updated, a new Service Management Facility (SMF) feature of Oracle Solaris service has been introduced. The svc:/application/man-index:default service triggers automatic regeneration of new index files whenever new man pages are added to the /usr/share/man and /usr/gnu/share/man directories if these directories exist. This service is enabled by default.

Note that for alternate man page directories, such as /opt/SUNWspro/man, you can create a symbolic link within the /usr/share/man/index.d directory to point to the alternate man page directory.

For instructions and examples, see Searching for Information in Man Pages by Specifying Keywords.