Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

Unix manual page
     
         (Or "man page") A part of {Unix}'s
        extensive on-line documentation.  To read a manual page, type
     
        	man [-s
] 
     
        at a shell prompt, e.g. "man ftp" (the section number can
        usually be omitted).  Pages are traditionally referred to
        using the notation "page(section)", e.g. ftp(1).
     
        Under {SunOS} (which is fairly typical), Section 1 covers
        commands, 2 {system calls}, 3 C library routines, 4 devices
        and networks, 5 file formats, 6 games and {demos}, 7
        miscellaneous, 8 system administration.  Each section has an
        introduction which can be obtained with, e.g., "man 2 intro".
     
        Manual pages are stored as {nroff} source files.  Formatted
        versions are also usually cached.
     
        {Unix manual page}: man(1).
     
        {A Linux man gateway (http://www.foldoc.org/man.cgi)}.
     
        {A Solaris man gateway
        (http://www.medsch.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/pdm/man.pl)}.
     
        (2000-03-13)