I just discovered that typing man 'printf(1)' or man 'printf(3)' actually works (at least with the man command on Ubuntu, provided by the "man-db" packa

I just discovered that typing man 'printf(1)' or man 'printf(3)' actually works (at least with the man command on Ubuntu, provided by the "man-db" package). You have to quote or escape the parentheses because they're shell metacharacters, which IMHO makes that syntax more trouble than it's worth. Other commands that work are "man 3 printf", "man -s 3 printf", and "man printf.3". I think "man 3 printf" is the oldest version. At least one other version of the man command (NetBSD) doesn't accept "man printf.3" or "man 'printf(3)'".