Man Page Question

[Matt_280]

At the end of the man page for ob2install there are these references to other OB commands.

What does the number and/or letter mean in the parentheses (e.g. uma(1M), omniintro(5))?

SEE ALSO
omniabort(1M), omnib(1M), omnibarlist(4), omnicc(1M),
omnicellinfo(1M), omniclus(1M), omnicreatedl(1M), omnidatalist(4),
omnidb(1M), omnidbcheck(1M), omnidbinit(1M), omnidownload(1M),
omnimcopy(1m), omniminit(1M), omnimlist(1M), omnimm(1M), omnimnt(1M),
omnimver(1M), omnidbutil(1M), omnir(1M), omnirpt(1M) omnistat(1M),
omnisv.sh(1M), omnitrig(1M), omniupload(1M), omniwriteascii_old(1M),
uma(1M), omniintro(5)

Thanks

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

The man pages are divided into sections. In hard copy, they were separate books. The numbers in parentheses refer to those sections or books. See the man page for man: man man


Pete

[Gary L. Paveza, Jr.]

man pages are broken up into different sections.

Section 1 - User Commands
Section 1m - System Admin commands
Section 2 - System calls
Section 3 - library functions
Section 4 - file formats
Section 5 - Miscellaneous
Section 7 - Device Special Files
Section 9 - Introduction and Glossary

man introduction for more details.

[Luk Vandenbussche]

It gives more advanced explication or a more advanced level

type fe

man 1M omniabort
man 1M omnib
man 5 omniintro

[Pete Randall]

I should expand on that to say that the sections were logically divide: Section 1 was User Commands, Section 1m was System Admin commands and so on.


Pete

[Rodney Hills]

If you do a "ls /usr/share/man" you will see several "sections" corresponding to those parenthesis values.

You can also do a "man man" to get more description about them.

HTH

Rod Hills

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

More information can be found by typing "man man".

The value of noting the section number of the man page comes in being able to specifically ask for that section. For instance, compare:

# man chown #...yields first section

# man 2 chown #...yields second section

You also can immediately discern what "type" of command or utility the function is. Things in section-2 are system calls and thus are not (as) relevent to shell programming. Things in section-1M are system administration commande, etc.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Matt_280]

Thank for your replies. I understand now.