Number in man page titles e.g. sleep(3)

(lalitm.com)

30 points | by thunderbong 2 hours ago

5 comments

  • mjlee 38 minutes ago
    If you like man trivia (and why else would you be reading this?) you could check out the top comment at https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/405783/why-does-man...

    (discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27994194)

    • porise 34 minutes ago
      Reading this makes me wonder if Easter eggs are ever appropriate for something as ubiquitous as man.
  • gerikson 32 minutes ago
    > (... less common section numbers)

    One very important section number is 5 - it's for file formats. So if you forget the crontab format, you need to invoke `man 5 crontab` to read about it.

  • kykat 41 minutes ago
    I looked up what the numbers mean a couple of times, but always forget it immediately
  • LtWorf 1 hour ago
    Step 1: Read `man man`

    Step 2: Feel the urge to write an article about that

    • sakjur 43 minutes ago
      I admire people who do that.

      Writing down what you learn cements knowledge, and sharing what you write might help someone else.

    • Stratoscope 37 minutes ago
      Is there a man man man article that will explain how to read man man?
  • amelius 43 minutes ago
    Confession. I think I haven't read manpages since stackoverflow and certainly not since LLMs.

    Perhaps the modern version of "man" should be a program you can talk to.

    • xigoi 13 minutes ago
      Please no. I want to read the manual without having to talk to anything.
    • nicman23 39 minutes ago
      i have made llms read manpages, it is great lol