freeCodeCamp/guide/english/bash/bash-man/index.md

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Bash Man

Man

Man, the abbreviation of manual, is a bash command used to display on-line reference manuals of the given command.

Man displays the relative man page (short for manual page) of the given command.

Usage

man [options] [command]

Most used options:

  • -f, print a short description of the given command
  • -a, display, in succession, all of the available intro manual pages contained within the manual
  • -c, reformat the source man page, used mostly when the page was formatted for a screen with a different number of columns
  • -l, enabling case sensitivity

Examples

Display the man page of ls

man ls

Display a short description of the shutdown command

man -f shutdown

Display the man page of ASCII table:

man ascii

More information: