WYNTK: UNIX System Admininistrator

Use the man command to learn how to use a command.

Knowing what command to run isn’t always enough. You might also need to know how to run the command. For that, use the man command , which tells you what the command does and what command-line options there are for it.

% man wc

WC(1) USER COMMANDS                      WC(1)

NAME
     wc count lines, words and characters

SYNOPSIS
     wc [ -lwc ] [ filename ...  ]





DESCRIPTION
  wc counts lines, words, and characters in filenames, or in the standard input if no
  filename appears.  It also keeps a total count for all named files.  A word is a string
  of characters delimited by SPACE, TAB, or NEWLINE characters.

This documentation is usually distributed with the program. It is called a manual page or, more affectionately, a manpage (rhymes with rampage, sort of).