What is the Linux man Command?

John on June 23, 2021

The man command in Linux is shorthand for "manuals" and provides a way to access user manuals for command-line tools/utilities.

man Syntax

The man command takes an optional list of flags followed by the name of the command.

man [OPTION...] [Command]

To explore the full list of flags available in man, use the following command:

man -h

Read a Manual with man

Let's say we want to learn about the grep command from the terminal. We would type the following:

man grep

A formatted manual will appear showing you everything about grep, which can be scrolled through using the UP/DOWN arrow keys.

When you have finished reading press Q to close the manual.

Find the Definition of Any Command Utility

If you just want a short definition of what any command-line utility is, use the -f flag in the man command. To demonstrate this, let's see what the printf command is:

man -f printf

printf (1)      - format and print data
printf (3)      - formatted output conversion