| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| 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] |
Search the short descriptions and manual page names for the keyword as a regular expression.
man -k searchtermThe order of sections to search may be overridden by the environment variable $MANSECT or by the SECTION directive in /etc/manpath.config. By default it is as follows:
1 n l 8 3 2 3posix 3pm 3perl 3am 5 4 9 6 7