Trouble RTFM

[PastAsNew]

This is really bugging me and I'm sure the answer is so trivial!

Using the command line help, or manuals, it sometimes shows a number in parentheses immediately after a command - is this simply some sort of reference number? I thought at first it was telling me something about parameters I had to pass in!

For instance looking at the Git manual page, it shows ...

git(1) Manual Page

... and then further down looking at the sub commands it has stuff like ...

git-add(1)

git-branch(1)

etc, etc

I'm pretty sure I've seen this help syntax on stuff other than Git, and the number in brackets is not always 1.

It would be useful to know what this is on about please.

[lomcevak]

Manpages are grouped into sections. The number refers to the section number. A command can be in more than one section so the 'man' command allows you specify the section. In your example,

git-branch(1)

you could look at the manpage with:

# man 1 git-branch

[nullpointer]

If you do a 'man man' it will give you a man of the man itself. In there, you will see all of the available section numbers (under the Description heading) as well as all the man information you could ever want.

[PastAsNew]

Never occured to me to try man man! Nor that the same command might be in multiple sections of the manual. All makes sense now.

Many thanks.

[Cabhan]

In most cases, it isn't actually the same command in multiple sections. Instead, it's things that are named the same. For instance, printf(1) is the printf program that you run from the shell. printf(3), on the other hand, is the printf function that is a part of the standard C library.

You can use "man -k TERM" to see every man page with that term in the title, and choose the appropriate one.

[Rubberman]

Never occured to me to try man man! Nor that the same command might be in multiple sections of the manual. All makes sense now.

Many thanks.

Well, there are some system commands that have the same name as library functions. Each will be in a different section, so if you just execute "man printf", you will get the printf page from section 1 which is a system command to be used in shell scripts, but if you want the C API printf() man page, you would use "man 3 printf". Two very different beasts!

[lomcevak]

In most cases, it isn't actually the same command in multiple sections. Instead, it's things that are named the same. For instance, printf(1) is the printf program that you run from the shell. printf(3), on the other hand, is the printf function that is a part of the standard C library.

You can use "man -k TERM" to see every man page with that term in the title, and choose the appropriate one.

Didn't phrase my post too well. I was thinking of 'crontab' at the time. crontab(1) gives you the command and crontab(5) gives you the format of the crontab file which is accessed by the crontab command.