100 Useful Command-Line Utilities

by Oliver; 2014

12. man

man shows the usage manual, or help page, for a command. For example, to see the manual for ls:

$ man ls

To see man's own manual page:

$ man man

The manual pages will list all of the command's flags which usually come in a one-dash-one-letter or two-dashes-one-word flavor:

command -f
command --flag

A related command discussed below is info.