1man(5) Standards, Environments, and Macros man(5)
2
6 man - macros to format Reference Manual pages
7
9 nroff -man filename...
10 troff -man filename...
13
16 These macros are used to lay out the reference pages in this manual.
17 Note: if filename contains format input for a preprocessor, the com‐
18 mands shown above must be piped through the appropriate preprocessor.
19 This is handled automatically by the man(1) command. See the ``Conven‐
20 tions'' section.
21 Any text argument t may be zero to six words. Quotes may be used to
24 include SPACE characters in a "word". If text is empty, the special
25 treatment is applied to the next input line with text to be printed. In
26 this way .I may be used to italicize a whole line, or .SB may be used
27 to make small bold letters.
28 A prevailing indent distance is remembered between successive indented
31 paragraphs, and is reset to default value upon reaching a non-indented
32 paragraph. Default units for indents i are ens.
33 Type font and size are reset to default values before each paragraph,
36 and after processing font and size setting macros.
37 These strings are predefined by -man:
40 \*R `®', `(Reg)' in nroff.
42 \*S Change to default type size.
45 Requests
48 * n.t.l. = next text line; p.i. = prevailing indent
49 Request Cause If no Explanation
54 Break Argument
55 .B t no t=n.t.l.* Text is in bold font.
56 .BI t no t=n.t.l. Join words, alternating bold and italic.
57 .BR t no t=n.t.l. Join words, alternating bold and roman.
58 .DT no .5i 1i... Restore default tabs.
59 .HP i yes i=p.i.* Begin paragraph with hanging indent. Set
60 prevailing indent to i.
61 .I t no t=n.t.l. Text is italic.
62 .IB t no t=n.t.l. Join words, alternating italic and bold.
63 .IP x i yes x="" Same as .TP with tag x.
64 .IR t no t=n.t.l. Join words, alternating italic and
65 roman.
66 .IX t no - Index macro, for SunSoft internal use.
68 .LP yes - Begin left-aligned paragraph. Set pre‐
69 vailing indent to .5i.
70 .P yes - Same as .LP.
71 .PD d no d=.4v Set vertical distance between para‐
72 graphs.
73 .PP yes - Same as .LP.
74 .RE yes - End of relative indent. Restores pre‐
75 vailing indent.
76 .RB t no t=n.t.l. Join words, alternating roman and bold.
77 .RI t no t=n.t.l. Join words, alternating roman and
78 italic.
79 .RS i yes i=p.i. Start relative indent, increase indent
80 by i. Sets prevailing indent to .5i for
81 nested indents.
82 .SB t no - Reduce size of text by 1 point, make
83 text bold.
84 .SH t yes - Section Heading.
85 .SM t no t=n.t.l. Reduce size of text by 1 point.
86 .SS t yes t=n.t.l. Section Subheading.
87 .TH n s d f m yes - Begin reference page n, of of section s;
88 d is the date of the most recent change.
89 If present, f is the left page footer; m
90 is the main page (center) header. Sets
91 prevailing indent and tabs to .5i.
92 .TP i yes i=p.i. Begin indented paragraph, with the tag
93 given on the next text line. Set pre‐
94 vailing indent to i.
95 .TX t p no - Resolve the title abbreviation t; join
96 to punctuation mark (or text) p.
97 Conventions
100 When formatting a manual page, man examines the first line to determine
101 whether it requires special processing. For example a first line con‐
102 sisting of:
103 '\" t
106 indicates that the manual page must be run through the tbl(1) pre‐
109 processor.
110 A typical manual page for a command or function is laid out as follows:
113 .TH title [1-9] The name of the command or function, which
115 serves as the title of the manual page. This is
116 followed by the number of the section in which
117 it appears.
118 .SH NAME The name, or list of names, by which the command
121 is called, followed by a dash and then a one-
122 line summary of the action performed. All in
123 roman font, this section contains no troff(1)
124 commands or escapes, and no macro requests. It
125 is used to generate the windex database, which
126 is used by the whatis(1) command.
127 .SH SYNOPSIS
130 Commands: The syntax of the command and its
131 arguments, as typed on the command
132 line. When in boldface, a word
133 must be typed exactly as printed.
134 When in italics, a word can be
135 replaced with an argument that you
136 supply. References to bold or ital‐
137 icized items are not capitalized in
138 other sections, even when they
139 begin a sentence.
140 Syntactic symbols appear in roman
142 face:
143 [ ] An argument, when sur‐
145 rounded by brackets is
146 optional.
147 | Arguments separated by
150 a vertical bar are
151 exclusive. You can
152 supply only one item
153 from such a list.
154 ... Arguments followed by
157 an ellipsis can be
158 repeated. When an
159 ellipsis follows a
160 bracketed set, the
161 expression within the
162 brackets can be
163 repeated.
164 Functions: If required, the data declaration,
168 or #include directive, is shown
169 first, followed by the function
170 declaration. Otherwise, the func‐
171 tion declaration is shown.
172 .SH DESCRIPTION A narrative overview of the command or func‐
176 tion's external behavior. This includes how it
177 interacts with files or data, and how it handles
178 the standard input, standard output and standard
179 error. Internals and implementation details are
180 normally omitted. This section attempts to pro‐
181 vide a succinct overview in answer to the ques‐
182 tion, "what does it do?"
183 Literal text from the synopsis appears in con‐
185 stant width, as do literal filenames and refer‐
186 ences to items that appear elsewhere in the
187 reference manuals. Arguments are italicized.
188 If a command interprets either subcommands or an
190 input grammar, its command interface or input
191 grammar is normally described in a USAGE sec‐
192 tion, which follows the OPTIONS section. The
193 DESCRIPTION section only describes the behavior
194 of the command itself, not that of subcommands.
195 .SH OPTIONS The list of options along with a description of
198 how each affects the command's operation.
199 .SH RETURN VALUES A list of the values the library routine will
202 return to the calling program and the condi‐
203 tions that cause these values to be returned.
204 .SH EXIT STATUS A list of the values the utility will return to
207 the calling program or shell, and the condi‐
208 tions that cause these values to be returned.
209 .SH FILES A list of files associated with the command or
212 function.
213 .SH SEE ALSO A comma-separated list of related manual pages,
216 followed by references to other published mate‐
217 rials.
218 .SH DIAGNOSTICS A list of diagnostic messages and an explanation
221 of each.
222 .SH BUGS A description of limitations, known defects, and
225 possible problems associated with the command or
226 function.
227
230 /usr/share/lib/tmac/an
231 /usr/share/man/windex
234
237 man(1), nroff(1), troff(1), whatis(1)
238 Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly, Unix Text Processing
241SunOS 5.11 30 Jan 1995 man(5)