For developers, the Linux operating system is familiar, even fairly familiar. In the Linux system, there is an omnipotent “man” ——man command, which can view the help documents of commands and functions in the Linux system, so that users can master the use of commands or functions and the meaning of different parameters. Even the man command can specify the file to configure the system. For example, the man -c config_file command can specify a configuration file for man.

In daily development, it is impossible to remember all the details of how commands or functions are used. Man can be summoned to help us master the details of how commands or functions are used. So the following system to learn the man command.

Format of the man command

On the Linux terminal, run the man man command to view details about the man command.

There are many parameters to choose from. Section is the section of the manual page. Each section has a different meaning, as shown below:

Man command output document interpretation

When calling man to interpret a command or function, a large amount of text information will be output in the terminal. As follows:

The command description describes the command format. This section describes the functions of commands. The options of the command provide different functions for the command, and the format of the options also has three different styles, but two are common:

  • Traditional Unix style: Use a single hyphen “-” + option abbreviation to indicate options
  • GNU style: Use two hyphens “–” + the full name of the option to indicate the option

Also, not all options have both styles, and some options do not have GNU style options, so we need to pay attention to the format of options when using commands. Otherwise, an error message may be displayed, indicating that the command does not know the argument.

After mastering the use of MAN command, we can summon MAN to help us master the details of command use when we encounter no command or unclear command in the development process. I have Man. I have Linux.

The man command also has some advanced uses, but we rarely use it in our daily life and will update it later.

Note: The exa command shown above is not a Linux native command, it is my exa plug-in