man

The man command is used to view the manual pages of commands and programs. Example:

man ls

This shows the full manual for the ls command.

Difference between man -f and man -k

man -f <command>

• Provides a one-line summary for the given command name.
• Only matches exact command names.
• Useful when you want to quickly check what a command does.

Example:

man -f cp

Output:

cp (1) - copy files and directories

man -k <keyword>

• Searches through all manual pages for the keyword in names or descriptions.
• Can return multiple results if the keyword appears in many places.
• Useful for discovering commands related to a topic.

Example:

man -k copy

Output:

cp (1) - copy files and directories
install (1) - copy files and set attributes
scp (1) - secure copy (remote file copy program)

Summary