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Unix documentation
Most Unix documentation can be read from the command line.
Classic manual sections: user commands (1), system calls (2), library
functions (3), devices (4), file formats (5).
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The man tool searches for the manual page file (→ $MANPATH) and
activates two further tools (nroff text formatter and more text-file
viewer). Add optional section number to disambiguate:
$ man 3 printf
# C subroutine, not command
Honesty in documentation: Unix manual pages traditionally include a BUGS section.
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xman: X11 GUI variant, offers a table of contents
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info: alternative GNU hypertext documentation system
Invoke with info from the shell of with C-h i from emacs. Use M(enu) key to select topic or
[Enter] to select hyperlink under cursor, N(ext)/P(rev)/U(p)/D(irectory) to navigate
document tree, Emacs search function (Ctrl-S), and finally Q(uit).
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Check /usr/share/doc/ and Web for further documentation.
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Examples of Unix tools
man, apropos, xman, info
help/documentation browser
more, less
plaintext file viewer
ls, find
list/traverse directories, search
cp, mv, rm, touch, ln
copy, move/rename, remove, renew
files, link/shortcut files
mkdir, rmdir
make/remove directories
cat, dd, head, tail
concatenate/split files
du, df, quota, rquota
examine disk space used and free
ps, top, free, uptime, w
process table and system load
vi, emacs, pico
interactive editors
cc, gcc
C compilers
make
project builder
cmp, diff, patch
compare files, apply patches
rcs, cvs, svn, git, hg, bzr
revision control systems
adb, gdb
debuggers
awk, perl, python, tcl
scripting languages
m4, cpp
macro processors
sed, tr
edit streams, replace characters
sort, grep, cut
sort/search lines of text, extract
columns
nroff, troff, tex, latex
text formatters
mail, pine, mh, exmh, elm
electronic mail user agents
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