man

man is an interactive autoloaded compiled Lisp function in `man.el'.


(man MAN-ARGS)

Get a Un*x manual page and put it in a buffer.
This command is the top-level command in the man package.
It runs a Un*x command to retrieve and clean a manpage in the
background and places the results in a `Man-mode' browsing
buffer. The variable `Man-width' defines the number of columns in
formatted manual pages. The buffer is displayed immediately.
The variable `Man-notify-method' defines how the buffer is displayed.
If a buffer already exists for this man page, it will be displayed
without running the man command.

For a manpage from a particular section, use either of the
following. "cat(1)" is how cross-references appear and is
passed to man as "1 cat".

cat(1)
1 cat

To see manpages from all sections related to a subject, use an
"all pages" option (which might be "-a" if it's not the
default), then step through with `Man-next-manpage' (M-n) etc.
Add to `Man-switches' to make this option permanent.

-a chmod

An explicit filename can be given too. Use -l if it might
otherwise look like a page name.

/my/file/name.1.gz
-l somefile.1

An "apropos" query with -k gives a buffer of matching page
names or descriptions. The pattern argument is usually an
"egrep" style regexp.

-k pattern