Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

Online Help

Mac OS X comes with over 900 Unix programs like the ones described in this chapter. How are you supposed to learn what they all do?

Fortunately, almost every Unix program comes with its own little help file. It may not appear within an elegant, brushed-metal Tiger window—in fact, it's pretty darned plain—but it offers much more material than the regular Mac Help Center.

These help files are called user-manual pages, or manpages, which hold descriptions of virtually every command and program available. Mac OS X, in fact, comes with manpages on about 7,000 topics—over 10,000 printed pages' worth.

Alas, manpages rarely have the clarity of writing or the learner-focused approach you find in the Mac Help Center. They're generally terse, just-the-facts descriptions. In fact, you'll probably find yourself needing to reread certain sections again and again. The information they contain, however, is invaluable to new and experienced Unix fans alike, and the effort spent mining them is usually worthwhile.

Using man

To access the manpage for a given command, type man followed by the name of the command you're researching. For example, to view the manpage for the ls command, enter: man ls.

Figure 16-7. To move on to the next man screen, press the Space bar. To go back, press the up arrow key or the B key. To close the manual and return to a prompt, press Q. You can also search for a certain ...