do you have a favourite man page?

[multisn8@mastodon.catgirl.cloud]

@b0rk@jvns.ca i often work offline, so i like long and elaborate man pages that go into every absurd detail but also note in-program help mechanisms

• nvim because it provides a jump start to :Tutor and :help quickref
• zshall because it explains All the syntax

[sw1nn@fosstodon.org]

@b0rk In the attention to detail category, the BUG detailed in the NetBSD sleep(1) man page is a favourite:

https://man.netbsd.org/sleep.1#BUGS

[b0rk@social.jvns.ca]

@shnizmuffin i didn’t even notice the option sorting, that’s so good

[ives@mstdn.social]

@ludonaut @thomastc @b0rk Is my memory making up things, or did there used to be an ebcdic(7) page as well at some time?

[stonebear2@hachyderm.io]

@pounce Oooooh, today I learned! @b0rk

[technicaladept@techhub.social]

@nabnux @b0rk many years ago I was told to read man bash. I referenced it many more times over the years. Mostly when scripting loops.

[benjamingeer@piaille.fr]

@b0rk @thatandromeda Often I pipe the output of `man` into `less`, then try to search for something like -n, which returns way too many results (e.g. mentions of that option before its definition). I wonder if a better `man` could be made that would let me search through an *index* of options instead of doing a full-text search.

[shanecelis@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@b0rk Why were example usages shunned by many man pages I'll never understand.

[b0rk@social.jvns.ca]

@technicaladept @nabnux i think for bash specifically I might prefer to use the html bash reference manual to reference the docs https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html (which I believe has the same content but with better formatting)

[shnizmuffin@toots.inbutts.lol]

@b0rk Special shout out to the official web address, since it's got hyperlinks on all the options:

https://download.samba.org/pub/rsync/rsync.1

[adardis@mstdn.social]

@b0rk @shnizmuffin Count on Apple to f*ck things up:

NAME
openrsync – synchronise local and remote files

SYNOPSIS
openrsync [-0468BCDEFHILOPRSTWVabcdefghiklmnopqrtuvxyz] [-e program]
[-f filter] [--address=sourceaddr] [--append]
[--backup-dir=directory] [--bwlimit=limit]
[--cache | --no-cache] [--

etc.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@b0rk

false (8) is my favourite

[kim@social.gfsc.studio]

@b0rk grindr (SORRY)

[ednl@mastodon.social]

@zx @b0rk Neat! Except that the data is in rows instead of columns, that's hard to read. I understand why, it's just a pity; so I'll still keep my ascii table printout taped to the wall

[mjd@mathstodon.xyz]

@b0rk @d6 A cast of thousands, but I think Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen probably wrote a lot of it.

[demiguise@linuxrocks.online]

@b0rk `man man` flashed me recently

[gduchaussois@mastodon.xyz]

@b0rk I'm not sure, if I measure it by times I read it, it should be tar, but because of its number of options. Regarding the fun of reading it or the fact I'm confident I will find the information I need, none really qualify

[kevindente@mastodon.social]

@b0rk I've always thought the jq man page is quite good. Lots of good examples

[demiguise@linuxrocks.online]

@b0rk @thatandromeda @fdroidorg has this app: https://f-droid.org/packages/wtf.technodisaster.tldr

[wolf480pl@mstdn.io]

@b0rk
I like section 7 in general - it can provide a good overview and tie together many different manpages relevant to a single topic that'd otherwise be hard to track down.

If I have to pick one, I guess it's
capabilities(7)