One very important section number is 5 - it's for file formats. So if you forget the crontab format, you need to invoke `man 5 crontab` to read about it.
That is incredibly stupid. A documentation system designed by someone who doesn't understand how people use documentation.
If man was designed by someone with any taste at all it would at least give you a menu to select (1) crontab command, (5) crontab file format. Maybe we need a rewrite in Rust to fix that.
Interestingly, the section doesn't actually have to start with a number. TCL man pages use the 'n' section and 'man' resolves them just fine despite the ambiguity. Conversely, manpage names can also start with numbers, although this is rare (I found only one such example: man 30-systemd-environment-d-generator)
If you like man trivia (and why else would you be reading this?) you could check out the top comment at https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/405783/why-does-man...
(discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27994194)
"The developer of the man-db, Colin Watson, decided that there was enough fun and the story won't get forgotten"
Haha! Adequate amount of fun was provided, please resume regular man activities.
Reading this makes me wonder if Easter eggs are ever appropriate for something as ubiquitous as man.
Easter eggs are always appropriate but it is imperative (and important) to understand how they could affect anything and everything.
Which means you need to usually make it explicit to call them (man --abba or something) than something that "surprises" the user.
> (... less common section numbers)
One very important section number is 5 - it's for file formats. So if you forget the crontab format, you need to invoke `man 5 crontab` to read about it.
... because if you do `man crontab` you get section 1, which does not document the crontab fields.
That is incredibly stupid. A documentation system designed by someone who doesn't understand how people use documentation.
If man was designed by someone with any taste at all it would at least give you a menu to select (1) crontab command, (5) crontab file format. Maybe we need a rewrite in Rust to fix that.
Or a minor alteration to an existing program to support a good suggestion.
Why is it that the Rust community thinks that the solution to every flaw in an application is a rewrite in Rust?
The POSIX standard manual pages for the utilities can be found here:
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/idx/xcu.htm...
These would all be in section 1, if I am correct.
Interestingly, the section doesn't actually have to start with a number. TCL man pages use the 'n' section and 'man' resolves them just fine despite the ambiguity. Conversely, manpage names can also start with numbers, although this is rare (I found only one such example: man 30-systemd-environment-d-generator)
I looked up what the numbers mean a couple of times, but always forget it immediately
Step 1: Read `man man`
Step 2: Feel the urge to write an article about that
I admire people who do that.
Writing down what you learn cements knowledge, and sharing what you write might help someone else.
Is there a man man man article that will explain how to read man man?
The full documentation for man is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info program is properly installed at your site, the command
Ah that crap is/was so rage inducing!Confession. I think I haven't read manpages since stackoverflow and certainly not since LLMs.
Perhaps the modern version of "man" should be a program you can talk to.
It's called Claude. Or Gemini-cli. Or any other agent capable of running man.
"Hey <agent>, use `man` to help answer these questions about grep"
Please no. I want to read the manual without having to talk to anything.
i have made llms read manpages, it is great lol