man —
display the on-line manual pages (aka “man
  pages”)
  
    | man | [ -acw|-h]
      [-Cfile]
      [-Mpath]
      [-mpath]
      [-Ssrch]
      [[-s] section]
      name ... | 
  
    | man | [ -Cfile]-fcommand
      ... | 
  
    | man | [ -Cfile]-kkeyword
      ... | 
The man utility displays the manual pages named on the
  command line. Its options are as follows:
  - -a
- Display all of the man pages for a specified section
      and name combination. (Normally, only the first man
      page found is displayed.)
- -C
- Use the specified file instead of the default
      configuration file. This permits users to configure their own man
      environment. See
      man.conf(5) for a
      description of the contents of this file.
- -c
- Copy the man page to the standard output instead of using
      more(1) to paginate it. This
      is done by default if the standard output is not a terminal device.
- -f
- Synonym for whatis(1). It
      searches man pages for command in their names and
      displays header lines from all matching pages.
- -h
- Display only the “SYNOPSIS” lines of the requested man
      pages. For commands, this is typically the command line usage information.
      For library functions, this usually contains the required include files
      and function prototypes.
- -k
- Search man pages for keyword(s), in the same manner
      as apropos(1).
- -M
- Override the list of standard directories which
      mansearches for man pages. The supplied
      path must be a colon (“:”) separated
      list of directories. This search path may also be set using the
      environment variableMANPATH. The subdirectories
      to be searched, and their search order, is specified by the
      “_subdir” line in themanconfiguration file.
- -m
- Augment the list of standard directories which mansearches for man pages. The supplied path must be a
      colon (“:”) separated list of directories. These directories
      will be searched before the standard directories or the directories
      specified using the-Moption or theMANPATHenvironment variable. The subdirectories
      to be searched, and their search order, is specified by the
      “_subdir” line in themanconfiguration file.
- -p
- Print the search path for the manual pages.
- -s
- Restrict the directories that manwill search to
      the specified section. Themanconfiguration file
      (see man.conf(5))
      specifies the possible section values that are
      currently available.
- -S
- Display only man pages that have the specified string in the directory
      part of their filenames. This allows the man page search process criteria
      to be narrowed without having to change the MANPATH or
      “_default” variables.
- -w
- List the pathnames of the man pages which manwould display for the specified section and
      name combination.
If the
    ‘-s-k-s
If name is given with a full path (beginning
    with ‘/’) or a
    relative path that begins with
    ‘./’ or
    ‘../’, then
    man interprets it as a file specification, so that
    you can do man ./foo.5 or
    even man /cd/foo/bar.1.gz.
    If name contains
    ‘/’ but does
    not match one of the above cases, then the search path is used; this allows
    you to request machine-specific man pages, such as
    man vax/boot.
  - MACHINE
- As some man pages are intended only for specific architectures,
      mansearches any subdirectories, with the same
      name as the current architecture, in every directory which it searches.
      Machine specific areas are checked before general areas. The current
      machine type may be overridden by setting the environment variableMACHINEto the name of a specific architecture.
      Machine-specific man pages may also be requested by prepending the
      relevant subdirectory name to the page name, separated by
      ‘/’.
- MANPATH
- The standard search path used by manmay be
      overridden by specifying a path in theMANPATHenvironment variable. The format of the path is a colon
      (“:”) separated list of directories. The subdirectories to
      be searched as well as their search order is specified by the
      “_subdir” line in themanconfiguration file.
- The pagination command used for writing the output. If the
      PAGERenvironment variable is null or not set, the
      standard pagination program
      more(1) will be used.
  - /etc/man.conf
- default man configuration file.
man conforms to X/Open Commands and
  Utilities Issue 5 (“XCU5”).
The on-line man pages are, by necessity, forgiving toward stupid display
  devices, causing a few man pages to be not as nicely formatted as their
  typeset counterparts.