4 ms·

I'm going to hijack this comment to ask a question that I haven't been able to google: What is the number after the command called? For example, when I look up

by holyjaw 13y ago

I'm going to hijack this comment to ask a question that I haven't been able to google: What is the number after the command called? For example, when I look up 'man sed', I find a manpage for 'sed(1)'[0]. When I look up 'man kill', I find manpages for 'kill(1)' and 'kill(2)'[2]. Can somebody tell me what that number is called so I can look it up? Thanks.. 0: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/sed.1.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin... 1: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/kill.1.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin... 2: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/kill.2.html http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/kill.2.html

arxanas 13y ago
That number refers to the section of the man pages that the command is in. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page#Manual_sections http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page#Manual_sections for an example list; however, it seems the list is not the same between systems.
rosser 13y ago
That's the "section" I'm talking about. "sed(1)" means that the man page for that sed is in section 1. "kill(1)" versus "kill(2)" likewise: the former is the command; the latter is the syscall. To distinguish between them, you need to tell man(1) which section to look in for the desired context.