Man page

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A man page (sometimes spelled manpage), short for manual page, is a form of software documentation found on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. Topics covered include programs, system libraries, system calls, and sometimes local system details. The local host administrators can create and install manual pages associated with the specific host. A manual end user may invoke a documentation page by issuing the man command followed by the name of the item for which they want the documentation. These manual pages are typically requested by end users, programmers and administrators doing real time work but can also be formatted for printing. By default, man typically uses a formatting program such as nroff with a macro package or mandoc, and also a terminal pager program such as more or less to display its output on the user's screen. Man pages are often referred to as an online form of software documentation, even though the man command does not require Internet access, because man pages are available from a command-line interface with the man command or from a graphical user interface with a man-page viewer, rather than only being readable in printed form. The environment variable MANPATH often specifies a list of directory paths to search for the various documentation pages. Manual pages date back to when printed documentation was the norm.