Getting Started with Man Command in Linux

What is Man Command:

    Man (Man represents manual) Command is Linux functionality that helps you to give information on how to use any specific command.

Types of command in Linux:

• Executable commands
• In-built Shell Commands

Man command is applicable only to the Executable commands. 

Below is an example of Executable commands. "ls" and "df" are executable commands.

In-built shell command. "cd" is an In-built shell command.

Now, lets see how man command related info in executable command.

command: man -ls  

In order to quit from the output displayed on executing the man command. press q to quit.

Name: Indicates the purpose of the mentioned command. Here, in this case we are using the ls command.

Synopsis: Indicates how this command can be used  [ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...]. The three dots after the Option and File indicates that option and file information can used any number of times.

Moving Keys in man page:

• Arrow keys are used to move up and down while using man command.
• CTRL + F --> Forward one man page. Space can also be used.
• CTRL + B --> Backward one page.
• g --> to go the top of man page
• G --> to go the bottom of man page

Find/filter a word in man page.

Filter from Top to Bottom:

Go to top of the man page by using the command g.

Then, execute a command followed by /. (Example: /--all )

Once the above command executed, if the filtered keyword is available in that particular man page, then that key word will be greyed as below.

If there are more keywords in that particular man page, you can move down by executing the key n (small n) for moving forward and N (Capital N) for moving backwards.

Filter from Bottom to Top:

Go to bottom of the man page by using the command G.

Then, execute a command followed by ?. (Example: ?--all )

You can also look into the Video Tutorial(explained in Tamil language):

That's it about the man page.