Questions about using man pages on a linux system.

Hi,

I have been programming in C on a linux computer for almost 2 years (exclusively). I love that I can get the man page for almost any command used in C. But I have questions that don't make sense to me...

When I use a man page, I first use:

Code:

---

man 3 C_PROGRAMMING_COMMAND

---

Usually works. But then I need to find the man page for read, but this doesn't work:

Code:

---

$ man 3 read
No manual entry for read in section 3

---

So I am forced to try the command again with success:

Code:

---

man 2 read

---

Using man 2 and man 3 produce pages with the same header:

Code:

---

Linux Programmer's Manual

---

Now the questions...

1) Why aren't they under the same man "number" (ie. all commands are at least listed under 3) if they are part of the Linux Programmer's Manual?

2) Is there an obvious way to determine which man "number" each command would be found under? Is it just older commands that are under man 2?

3) Is there a way to force all man pages listed under man 2 to also be included in man 3 (so I don't have to redo a command with a different number)?

Ty,
Yonut

Normally, there's no need to bother with the section number.
man read
man strcat
These automatically locate the correct section for you.

The only time you need the section number is when the same thing appears in more than one section, like printf.

The apropos command is useful in this respect.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by apropos

$ apropos printf
asprintf (3) - print to allocated string
dprintf (3) - formatted output conversion
fprintf (3) - formatted output conversion
fwprintf (3) - formatted wide-character output conversion
printf (1) - format and print data
printf (3) - formatted output conversion

---

It's a grep-like tool for searching manual page descriptions.

As for the sections themselves,

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by man man

1 Executable programs or shell commands
2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
3 Library calls (functions within program libraries)
4 Special files (usually found in /dev)
5 File formats and conventions, e.g. /etc/passwd
6 Games
7 Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions), e.g. man(7), groff(7)
8 System administration commands (usually only for root)
9 Kernel routines [Non standard]

---

I do remember using just man but I believe it didn't give the right one for printf.

I feel I have found a way around my problem. I'm using the following in my .aliases file (p for programing man pages):

Code:

---

pan() {
    man 3 $1 || man 2 $1 || man $1
}

---

I added the final || for man just in case I get to used to using pan.

Thanks Salem, apropos should help me in the future.

Ok, I made my function a little better. I originally used pan becuase when I tried to use man the command became recursive.

I fixed it by putting the full path to the man program. Now I can use man normally.

Code:

---

man() {
    /usr/bin/man 3 $1 || /usr/bin/man 2 $1 || /usr/bin/man $1
}

---