Man Page Documentation

man pages section 1: User Commands

This section describes the commands and utilities available with this operating system, including commands that are found only in the SunOS/BSD Compatibility Package. Also described are commands for communicating with other systems, commands associated with the Form and Menu Language Interpreter (FMLI), and commands specific to the SunOS^TM system.

The available options, arguments, and operands for each command are provided in accordance with standard rules of command syntax. Also provided are availability attributes, diagnostic information, and cross-references to other document pages and reference material with relevant information. 

This section is for all UNIX system users. 

man pages section 1M: System Administration Commands

This section describes the Solaris system administration and maintenance utilities and is for system and network administrators. 

man pages section 2: System Calls

This section describes the system calls. A system call is a C library function that requests kernel services. Readers of this section should be familiar with C programming language constructs. 

man pages section 3: Basic Library Functions

This section describes the core library functions found in the standard C library (libc), the dynamic linking library (libdl), the SunOS/BSD compatibility library (libucb), and the various memory allocation libraries. Readers of this section should be familiar with C programming language constructs.

man pages section 3: Curses Library Functions

This section describes the functions in the libraries that provide graphics and character screen-updating capabilities. Those functions include the curses library (libcurses), the forms library (libform), the menus library (libmenu), the panels library (libpanel), and the graphics interface library (libplot). Readers of this section should be familiar with C programming language constructs.

man pages section 3: Extended Library Functions

This section describes the functions in the various specialized libraries. Those functions include device ID (libdevid) and device information (libdevinfo) libraries, executable and linking format (ELF) library (libelf), kernel statistics (libkstat) and kernel VM (libkvm) libraries, and the mathematical library (libm). Readers of this section should be familiar with C programming language constructs.

man pages section 3: Library Interfaces and Headers

This section describes the interface libraries that are implemented as shared objects and the headers that are used by the functions that make up these libraries. Headers contain function prototypes, definitions of symbolic constants, common structures, preprocessor macros, and defined types. Readers of this section should be familiar with C programming language constructs. 

man pages section 3: Networking Library Functions

This section describes the functions in the various networking libraries. Those functions include the Kerberos library (libkrb), the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) library (libldap), the network service library (libnsl), and the remote asynchronous calls library (librac). Also included are the resolver library (libresolv), the remote procedure call libraries (librpcsvc and librpcsoc), the sockets library (libsocket), the X/Open Federated Naming (XFN) library (libxfn), and the X/Open network service library (libxnet). Readers of this section should be familiar with C programming language constructs.

man pages section 3: Threads and Realtime Library Functions

This section describes the functions in the threads libraries (libthread and libpthread), the real-time library (librt), and other related libraries. Readers of this section should be familiar with C programming language constructs.

man pages section 4: File Formats

This section outlines the formats of various files that include the C structure declarations where applicable. The headers that contain these structure declarations are generally found in the directories /usr/include or /usr/include/sys.

In the pages that outline the various library structures, both public and private interfaces are listed. A public interface provides a stable, committed set of symbols for application development. Private interfaces are for internal use only and can change at any time.  

This section is for software developers. 

man pages section 5: Standards, Environments, and Macros

This section describes miscellaneous subjects, including headers, environments, macro packages, character sets, and standards. These descriptions provide further elaboration on Solaris constructs that are described elsewhere in this section. 

man pages section 6: Demos

This section describes audio and video games and demos that are provided by Solaris software. 

man pages section 7: Device and Network Interfaces

This section describes the various device and network interfaces that are available on the system. The section includes descriptions of character and block devices, STREAMS modules, network protocols, file systems, and ioctl() requests for driver subsystems and classes.

This section is for software developers who write, maintain, or modify device drivers. 

man pages section 9: DDI and DKI Driver Entry Points

This section describes entry-point routines a developer can use to provide call and return syntax from the kernel to the device driver. 

This section is for software developers who write, modify, or maintain device drivers. Readers should be familiar with the C programming language as well as system internals. 

man pages section 9: DDI and DKI Kernel Functions

This section describes functions a developer can use to provide call and return syntax from a device driver to the kernel. 

This section is for software developers who write, modify, or maintain device drivers. Readers should be familiar with the C programming language as well as system internals. 

man pages section 9: DDI and DKI Properties and Data Structures

Section 9P describes kernel properties that are used by device drivers. Section 9S describes the data structures that are used by drivers to share information between the kernel and device drivers. 

These sections are for software developers who write, modify or maintain device drivers. Readers should be familiar with the C programming language as well as system internals.