Mac OS X Lion: The Missing Manual

Unix Help

Mac OS X comes with over 1,400 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 a help file. It may not appear within an elegant, gradient-gray Lion window—in fact, it’s pretty darned plain—but it offers much more material than the regular Mac Help Center.

These user-manual pages, or manpages, hold descriptions of virtually every command and program available. Mac OS X, in fact, comes with manpages on almost 4,500 topics—over 35,000 printed pages’ worth.

Alas, manpages rarely have the clarity of writing or the learner-focused approach of 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.

Tip

The -k option flag lets you search by keyword. For example, man -k applescript produces a list of all manpages that refer to AppleScript, whereupon you can pick one of the names in the list and man that page name.

Now the manual appears, one screen at a time, as shown in Figure 16-7.

A typical manpage begins with these sections:

• Name. The name and ...