NAME
     man - display the on-line manual pages

SYNOPSIS
     man [-achw] [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [-s section] name ...

DESCRIPTION
     The man utility displays the BSD manual pages entitled name.

     The options are as follows:

     -a      Display all of the manual pages for a specified section and name
             combination.  (Normally, only the first manual page found is dis-
             played.)

     -C      Use the specified file instead of the default configuration file.
             This permits users to configure their own manual environment.
             See man.conf(5) for a description of the contents of this file.

     -c      Copy the manual 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.

     -h      Display only the ``SYNOPSIS'' lines of the requested manual
             pages.

     -M      Override the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (``:'') separat-
             ed list of directories.  This search path may also be set using
             the environment variable MANPATH. The subdirectories to be
             searched, and their search order, is specified by the ``_subdir''
             line in the man configuration file.  Entries may be aliases de-
             fined in the configuration file.  Only entries which have no
             slash character (``/'') are subject to aliasing.

     -m      Augment the list of standard directories which man searches for
             manual pages.  The supplied path must be a colon (``:'') separat-
             ed list of directories.  These directories will be searched be-
             fore the standard directories or the directories specified using
             the -M option or the MANPATH environment variable.  The subdirec-
             tories to be searched, and their search order, is specified by
             the ``_subdir'' line in the man configuration file.  Entries may
             be aliases defined in the configuration file.  Only entries which
             have no slash character (``/'') are subject to aliasing.

     -s      Restrict the directories to section that man will search.  For
             historical reasons the -s flag is optional if section starts with
             a digit ([0-9]).  The man configuration file (see man.conf(5))
             specifies the possible section values that are currently avail-
             able.

     -w      List the pathnames of the manual pages which man would display
             for the specified section and name combination.

ENVIRONMENT
     MACHINE   As some manual pages are intended only for specific architec-
               tures, man searches 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 environ-
               ment variable MACHINE to the name of a specific architecture.

     MANPATH   The standard search path used by man may be overridden by spec-
               ifying a path in the MANPATH environment 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 the man configuration
               file.  Entries may be aliases defined in the configuration
               file.  Only entries which have no slash character (``/'') are
               subject to aliasing.

     PAGER     Any value of the environment variable PAGER will be used in-
               stead of the standard pagination program, more(1).

FILES
     /etc/man.conf  default man configuration file.

SEE ALSO
     apropos(1),  makewhatis(1),  whatis(1),  whereis(1),  man.conf(5)

BUGS
     The on-line manual pages are, by necessity, forgiving toward stupid dis-
     play devices, causing a few manual pages to not as nicely formatted as
     their typeset counterparts.

HISTORY
     A man command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.