Man page organization has changed to be compatible with SVR4 organization. As a result, some sections have been renamed. For example, man(8) is now man(1M).
Table 6-4 shows SunOS release 5.6 man page directories.
Table 6-4 SunOS release 5.6 man Page Directories
/man Directory |
Contents |
Suffixes |
---|---|---|
man1 |
User commands |
1B - SunOS/BSD compatibility commands |
|
|
1C - Communication commands |
|
|
1F - FMLI commands |
|
|
1S - SunOS commands |
man1M |
System administration commands |
|
man2 |
System calls |
|
man3 |
Library functions |
3B - SunOS/BSD compatibility libraries |
|
|
3C - C library functions |
|
|
3E - ELF library functions |
|
|
3G - C library functions |
|
|
3I - Wide Character functions |
|
|
3K - Kernel VM library functions |
|
|
3M - Math library |
|
|
3N - Network functions |
|
|
3R - RPC services library |
|
|
3S - Standard I/O functions |
|
|
3T - Threads library functions |
|
|
3X - Miscellaneous library functions |
man4 |
File formats |
4B - SunOS/BSD compatibility file formats |
man5 |
Headers, tables, and macros |
|
man7 |
Special files |
|
man9 |
DDI/DKI |
|
man9E |
DDI/DKI entry points |
|
man9F |
DDI/DKI kernel functions |
|
man9S |
DDI/DKI data structures |
Unlike in the SunOS release 4.x software, which searched the individual man directories according to a predetermined order, the SunOS release 5.6 software lets you determine the search path. The man command uses the path set in the man page configuration file, man.cf.
Each component of the MANPATH
environment variable can contain a different man.cf file. You can modify man.cf to change the order of the search; for example, to search 3b before 3c. The configuration file for the /usr/share/man directory follows.
# # Default configuration file for the on-line manual pages. # MANSECTS=1,1m,1c,1f,1s,1b,2,3,3c,3s,3x,3i,3t,3r,3n,3m,3k,3g, \ 3e,3b,9f,9s,9e,9,4,5,7,4b,6,l,n |
The arguments to MANSECTS are derived from the man subdirectories available. The number of subdirectories has increased dramatically in this release because each subsection has its own directory. This new structure improves the performance of the man command and gives you finer control over the search path. The next two figures compare the man directories for the two releases.
sunos4.1% ls /usr/share/man man1/ man2/ man3/ man4/ man5/ man6/ man7/ man8/ manl/ mann/ |
The SunOS release 4.x man page table of contents and keyword database is called whatis. In the SunOS release 5.6 software, this information is in the windex file. In both releases, the database is created by the catman command, and is used by the man, apropos, and whatis commands.
The windex file also has a slightly different format than the whatis file, as you can see from the following comparison of the two release versions.
sunos4.1% man -k tset tset, reset (1) - establish or restore terminal characteristics |
sunos5.6% man -k tset reset tset (1b) - establish or restore terminal characteristics tset tset (1b) - establish or restore terminal characteristics |
Table 6-5 shows that SunOS release 5.6 version of the man command has additional search options.
Table 6-5 New man Command Options
Option |
Description |
---|---|
-a |
Displays all man pages that match file name. The pages are displayed sequentially in the order they are found. |
-l |
Lists all man pages that match file name. You can use the output of this command to specify a section number with the -s option. |
-s section-number |
Searches section-number for file name. In the SunOS release 4.x software, the man command accepted the section number as an option; in this release, the section number must be preceded by -s. |
-F |
Forces the man command to search all directories until file name is found. This option overrides the windex database and the man.cf file. |
See the man(1) man page for a complete description of the SunOS release 5.6 man command.