4 ms·
What does the (8) mean after ping or in other command's man pages?
by strangeattractr 4y ago
What does the (8) mean after ping or in other command's man pages?
- cypress66 4y agoMANUAL SECTIONS The standard sections of the manual include: 1 User Commands 2 System Calls 3 C Library Functions 4 Devices and Special Files 5 File Formats and Conventions 6 Games et. al. 7 Miscellanea 8 System Administration tools and Daemons
- bxparks 4y agoAnd it's used to disambiguate the same name in different sections, for example: $ man 1 printf # prints printf(1) $ man 3 printf # prints printf(3) $ man printf # prints printf(1)
- Arnavion 4y ago(See `man man` in your own installation.)
- ciupicri 4y agoFor OpenBSD that would be http://man.openbsd.org/man.1#s http://man.openbsd.org/man.1#s
- NobodyNada 4y agoIt’s worth mentioning that in online conversations or documentation, rather than referring to manpages specifically, it’s often used simply to disambiguate “the Unix command ping” from anything else that might be called ping. E.g. in a casual conversation the word “open” can refer to a hundred different things, but if someone writes “open(2)” it’s unambiguous that they’re talking about the syscall. Kinda like how macOS users will write “Mail.app” to disambiguate the built-in email client from the concept of email in general.
- Tempest1981 4y agoFurther details here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/3587 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/3587
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]