Search keyword in "man" page

[yyghp]

When I use "man" to get help for the certain command, for example, "man swremove",
how can I search a string within all the man pages for "swremove"?
Something like with "vi", you can use "/" to search a specific string within the whole file.
Thanks!

[Torsten.]

Vi-like search will work, but there are html-pages of the man pages too on http://docs.hp.com, e.g.

http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-60103/index.html

[Pete Randall]

Start by doing a man on "catman". That should get you going.


Pete

[Torsten.]

... and on your server too per default:

http://yourserver.domain.com/cgi-bin/man2html

[yyghp]

Thanks Torsten, the link is great!
But how can I use "vi-like search" in "man"? I tried to press "Esc",then "/", then , it didn't work.

Thanks Pete, but what do you mean "catman"?

[TwoProc]

First, try running "man -k swremove".

If it doesn't work, then as root, you'll need to kick off the command "catman".

Let that run till it's over (it will take a really long time).

Then, you can run "man -k swremove"

[spex]

I believe 'man' uses 'more' as its pager, so you're free to use any keystrokes that work in 'more'. As with vi, you can do / for a forward search, ? for a backward search, n to forward-repeat, and N to reverse-repeat.

PCS

[Torsten.]

It works, your search string is anywhere on the page, but there is no highlighting. That's why I like to use a browser to read the man pages.

[yyghp]

Hi John,

In fact, I need to search a keyword within the manpage of "swremove", without going through all pages.
For example, I need to search for the option of "swremove": "enforce_dependencies", then I can go to those pages talking about "enforce_dependencies".

Thanks!

[OldSchool]

What I usually do is set and export the variable PAGER=pg. Man will then use "pg" for paging.

at the ":" you can enter "/top" to search for the characters "top" in the output

[yyghp]

Thanks Torsten, but your link:
http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-60103/index.html
is not a complete reference, I couldn't find even "swremove" in it.

[Torsten. · Accepted solution]

This is your start link:

http://docs.hp.com/en/hpuxman_pages.html

here is the man page for 11.11:

http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-90692/swremove.1M.html

[inventsekar_1]

hi yyghp, i too had the same doubt just two or three days back.

just seeing ur post, i found out the way.

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search in man pages is equal to vi. but u should understand that, in vi to go to the command mode we should press ":" and for searching /string we will give.

but in man "forget that going to command mode" and remainings are same.
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or simply work like "more".

[Pete Randall]

Searching within a single man page is just like in vi: enter the "/" character followed by the string you wish to search for - in your case "/enforce_dependencies".

To search all the man pages for a reference you need to run catman to generate the searchable database. This is described in the man pages for catman.


Pete

[Bill Hassell]

Finding any string in the man page description is done with man -k. man -k does a simple string match so man -k sw will find a lot of matches. The database needs to be built with catman (which will take a while), biut then it must be maintained. As new patches and applications are added, the man pages need to checked for new and changed items. catman -m will merge changed and added one-liners to the whatis database (/usr/share/lib/whatis).

On a new system, I'll start catman at the end of the day and then add something like this to cron:

# Update whatis (man -k) database
3 2 1,15 * * /usr/bin/catman -m

This runs the update on the 1st and 15th of each month. Then I just forget catman...

For searching inside man pages, the standard pager programs (pg, page, more) are just a bit too cryptic (and different). And of course, less is more. (there is a GNU program called less). So I wrote a script called viman (attached). Anytime I want a man page, I just type viman rather than man. It has the advantage of running a full vi with all the familiar commands like / and ? for searching, and G to jump down to the bottom. It also removes header lines and extra blank lines. When you're done reading, just type ZZ and the temp man page is gone.

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

I want to add something to Bills response:
Don't forget to set the MANPATH explicitly in your crontjob, because of the small environment of crontab. My example:
5 5 5,20 * * MANPATH=`cat /etc/MANPATH` catman -w

mfG Peter