How to Access Help Online

UNIX Online Documentation

There are several ways to access online documentation:

• The man command:    man commandname
   
  The man command contains the complete UNIX manual, with pages for every command, library file, header file, and common file formats. man uses a terminal interface; xman uses the X-windows GUI interface.
   
  

  ---

• The SGI TechPubs Library is web based documentation that goes beyond the man pages. The library contains extensive information on our SGI systems. It is searchable and can be used from any web browser.
   
  To access the TechPubs Library from your browser, go to:
  http://techpubs.sgi.com
   
  

  ---

• The IBM Documentation Library is a web based documentation that goes beyond the unix man pages. In fact, all man pages for the IBM should be available in HTML format from this library.
   
  To access the Documentation Library from your browser, go to:
  http://publibn.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ds_rslt
   
  

TAMU Supercomputing Facility Website

Don't forget, documentation for many of the commercial applications running on our servers is also available on the TAMU Supercomputing website at:
 
http://sc.tamu.edu/help and http://sc.tamu.edu/software
 
In addition to application documentation, the website provides up-to-date news and information regarding developments at the Facility which impact the user community.
 

How to use the "man" command

To access the online manual from the UNIX command line, use the man command. To read the manual for the C-shell (csh) enter:

k2% man csh

The output will look like this:

csh(1)                                                                  csh(1)

NAME

         csh - shell command interpreter with a C-like syntax

SYNOPSIS
         csh [ -bcefinstvVxX ] [ argument ... ]

DESCRIPTION

         csh, the C shell, is a command interpreter with a syntax reminiscent of
         the C language.  It provides a number of convenient features for
         interactive use that are not available with the standard (Bourne) shell,
         including filename completion, command aliasing, history substitution,
         job control, and a number of built-in commands.  As with the standard
         shell, the C shell provides variable, command and filename substitution.
         .
         .

This is only the first page of output and there is more to read.

You can use these keys in man:

How to Find Things

To find something in the online manual use the whereis, whatis, and apropos commands.

whereis returns the location of a named file, for example:

k2%  whereis ls
ls: /usr/bin/ls /sbin/ls /usr/share/catman/u_man/cat1/ls.z

This means the "ls" program is in /usr/bin and also in /sbin/ls. Furthermore, the man page for ls is in /usr/share/catman/u_man/cat1/ls.z.

whatis returns a short description of a command or function. Example:

agave%  whatis gcc
gcc (1)                 - GNU project C and C++ compiler

means that help for gcc is in section 1 of the manual.

agave%  whatis strcat
strcat(3)       - Copies and appends strings inmemory.

means that help for strcat is in section 3 of the manual. You could use "man 3 strcat" to read this man page.

Sometimes you will get multiple responses:

agave%  whatis make
make (1L)            - GNU make utility to maintain groups of programs
make(1)               - Maintains, updates, andregenerates groups of programs.

this indicates that there are two make commands. To read about the GNU make, you could enter:

agave% man 1L make

Apropos keyword search

The apropos command will search for keywords in the descriptions of man pages. If you enter:

agave% apropos perl

you will get a list of all manual pages related to "perl". If there are a lot (as for perl) you can pipe the output through more:

agave% apropos perl | more

Sections of the Manual

The online manuals are divided into sections, numbered 1-8. The reference csh(1) means the csh command in section 1. The sections are:

On the SGIs some sections have an "intro" page giving more information on that section. If you wanted to learn what subroutines are available for C programming, you would enter:

man 3 intro

Location of the Online Manuals

The man command will only for help files in directories on your MANPATH. To see your MANPATH, type:

echo $MANPATH

The locations of help files for the man command are:

You can add new directories to your MANPATH. For example, to add /usr/local/gnu/man, enter:

For C-shell (csh) users:

setenv MANPATH ${MANPATH}:/usr/local/gnu/man

For ksh and bash users:

MANPATH=${MANPATH}:/usr/local/gnu/man
export MANPATH

To make this MANPATH permanent, add it to your .cshrc file (csh users) or .profile (for ksh and bash).
 

User Environment

The man command uses the following environment variables:

setenv  MANPATH  /usr/local/gnu/man:/usr/local/tex/man:$MANPATH

setenv  MANPATH  ${MANPATH}:/usr/local/gnu/man:/usr/local/tex/man

setenv  PAGER  "less -Cms"