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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | STYLE GUIDE | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
MAN-PAGES(7) Linux Programmer's Manual MAN-PAGES(7)
man-pages - conventions for writing Linux man pages
man [section] title
This page describes the conventions that should be employed when
writing man pages for the Linux man-pages project, which documents
the user-space API provided by the Linux kernel and the GNU C
library. The project thus provides most of the pages in Section 2,
many of the pages that appear in Sections 3, 4, and 7, and a few of
the pages that appear in Sections 1, 5, and 8 of the man pages on a
Linux system. The conventions described on this page may also be
useful for authors writing man pages for other projects.
Sections of the manual pages
The manual Sections are traditionally defined as follows:
1 User commands (Programs)
Those commands that can be executed by the user from within
a shell.
2 System calls
Those functions which wrap operations performed by the
kernel.
3 Library calls
All library functions excluding the system call wrappers
(Most of the libc functions).
4 Special files (devices)
Files found in /dev which allow to access to devices
through the kernel.
5 File formats and configuration files
Describes various human-readable file formats and
configuration files.
6 Games Games and funny little programs available on the system.
7 Overview, conventions, and miscellaneous
Overviews or descriptions of various topics, conventions
and protocols, character set standards, the standard
filesystem layout, and miscellaneous other things.
8 System management commands
Commands like mount(8), many of which only root can
execute.
Macro package
New manual pages should be marked up using the groff an.tmac package
described in man(7). This choice is mainly for consistency: the vast
majority of existing Linux manual pages are marked up using these
macros.
Conventions for source file layout
Please limit source code line length to no more than about 75
characters wherever possible. This helps avoid line-wrapping in some
mail clients when patches are submitted inline.
New sentences should be started on new lines. This makes it easier
to see the effect of patches, which often operate at the level of
individual sentences.
Title line
The first command in a man page should be a TH command:
.TH title section date source manual
where:
title The title of the man page, written in all caps
(e.g., MAN-PAGES).
section The section number in which the man page should be
placed (e.g., 7).
date The date of the last nontrivial change that was made
to the man page. (Within the man-pages project, the
necessary updates to these timestamps are handled
automatically by scripts, so there is no need to
manually update them as part of a patch.) Dates
should be written in the form YYYY-MM-DD.
source The source of the command, function, or system call.
For those few man-pages pages in Sections 1 and 8,
probably you just want to write GNU.
For system calls, just write Linux. (An earlier
practice was to write the version number of the
kernel from which the manual page was being
written/checked. However, this was never done
consistently, and so was probably worse than
including no version number. Henceforth, avoid
including a version number.)
For library calls that are part of glibc or one of
the other common GNU libraries, just use GNU C
Library, GNU, or an empty string.
For Section 4 pages, use Linux.
In cases of doubt, just write Linux, or GNU.
manual The title of the manual (e.g., for Section 2 and 3
pages in the man-pages package, use Linux
Programmer's Manual).
Sections within a manual page
The list below shows conventional or suggested sections. Most manual
pages should include at least the highlighted sections. Arrange a
new manual page so that sections are placed in the order shown in the
list.
NAME
SYNOPSIS
CONFIGURATION [Normally only in Section 4]
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS [Normally only in Sections 1, 8]
EXIT STATUS [Normally only in Sections 1, 8]
RETURN VALUE [Normally only in Sections 2, 3]
ERRORS [Typically only in Sections 2, 3]
ENVIRONMENT
FILES
VERSIONS [Normally only in Sections 2, 3]
ATTRIBUTES [Normally only in Sections 2, 3]
CONFORMING TO
NOTES
BUGS
EXAMPLE
SEE ALSO
Where a traditional heading would apply, please use it; this kind of
consistency can make the information easier to understand. If you
must, you can create your own headings if they make things easier to
understand (this can be especially useful for pages in Sections 4 and
5). However, before doing this, consider whether you could use the
traditional headings, with some subsections (.SS) within those
sections.
The following list elaborates on the contents of each of the above
sections.
NAME The name of this manual page.
See man(7) for important details of the line(s) that
should follow the .SH NAME command. All words in this
line (including the word immediately following the
"\-") should be in lowercase, except where English or
technical terminological convention dictates otherwise.
SYNOPSIS A brief summary of the command or function's interface.
For commands, this shows the syntax of the command and
its arguments (including options); boldface is used for
as-is text and italics are used to indicate replaceable
arguments. Brackets ([]) surround optional arguments,
vertical bars (|) separate choices, and ellipses (...)
can be repeated. For functions, it shows any required
data declarations or #include directives, followed by
the function declaration.
Where a feature test macro must be defined in order to
obtain the declaration of a function (or a variable)
from a header file, then the SYNOPSIS should indicate
this, as described in feature_test_macros(7).
CONFIGURATION Configuration details for a device.
This section normally appears only in Section 4 pages.
DESCRIPTION An explanation of what the program, function, or format
does.
Discuss how it interacts with files and standard input,
and what it produces on standard output or standard
error. Omit internals and implementation details
unless they're critical for understanding the
interface. Describe the usual case; for information on
command-line options of a program use the OPTIONS
section.
When describing new behavior or new flags for a system
call or library function, be careful to note the kernel
or C library version that introduced the change. The
preferred method of noting this information for flags
is as part of a .TP list, in the following form (here,
for a new system call flag):
XYZ_FLAG (since Linux 3.7)
Description of flag...
Including version information is especially useful to
users who are constrained to using older kernel or C
library versions (which is typical in embedded systems,
for example).
OPTIONS A description of the command-line options accepted by a
program and how they change its behavior.
This section should appear only for Section 1 and 8
manual pages.
EXIT STATUS A list of the possible exit status values of a program
and the conditions that cause these values to be
returned.
This section should appear only for Section 1 and 8
manual pages.
RETURN VALUE For Section 2 and 3 pages, this section gives a list of
the values the library routine will return to the
caller and the conditions that cause these values to be
returned.
ERRORS For Section 2 and 3 manual pages, this is a list of the
values that may be placed in errno in the event of an
error, along with information about the cause of the
errors.
Where several different conditions produce the same
error, the preferred approach is to create separate
list entries (with duplicate error names) for each of
the conditions. This makes the separate conditions
clear, may make the list easier to read, and allows
metainformation (e.g., kernel version number where the
condition first became applicable) to be more easily
marked for each condition.
The error list should be in alphabetical order.
ENVIRONMENT A list of all environment variables that affect the
program or function and how they affect it.
FILES A list of the files the program or function uses, such
as configuration files, startup files, and files the
program directly operates on.
Give the full pathname of these files, and use the
installation process to modify the directory part to
match user preferences. For many programs, the default
installation location is in /usr/local, so your base
manual page should use /usr/local as the base.
ATTRIBUTES A summary of various attributes of the function(s)
documented on this page. See attributes(7) for further
details.
VERSIONS A brief summary of the Linux kernel or glibc versions
where a system call or library function appeared, or
changed significantly in its operation.
As a general rule, every new interface should include a
VERSIONS section in its manual page. Unfortunately,
many existing manual pages don't include this
information (since there was no policy to do so when
they were written). Patches to remedy this are
welcome, but, from the perspective of programmers
writing new code, this information probably matters
only in the case of kernel interfaces that have been
added in Linux 2.4 or later (i.e., changes since kernel
2.2), and library functions that have been added to
glibc since version 2.1 (i.e., changes since glibc
2.0).
The syscalls(2) manual page also provides information
about kernel versions in which various system calls
first appeared.
CONFORMING TO A description of any standards or conventions that
relate to the function or command described by the
manual page.
The preferred terms to use for the various standards
are listed as headings in standards(7).
For a page in Section 2 or 3, this section should note
the POSIX.1 version(s) that the call conforms to, and
also whether the call is specified in C99. (Don't
worry too much about other standards like SUS, SUSv2,
and XPG, or the SVr4 and 4.xBSD implementation
standards, unless the call was specified in those
standards, but isn't in the current version of
POSIX.1.)
If the call is not governed by any standards but
commonly exists on other systems, note them. If the
call is Linux-specific, note this.
If this section consists of just a list of standards
(which it commonly does), terminate the list with a
period ('.').
NOTES Miscellaneous notes.
For Section 2 and 3 man pages you may find it useful to
include subsections (SS) named Linux Notes and Glibc
Notes.
In Section 2, use the heading C library/kernel
differences to mark off notes that describe the
differences (if any) between the C library wrapper
function for a system call and the raw system call
interface provided by the kernel.
BUGS A list of limitations, known defects or inconveniences,
and other questionable activities.
EXAMPLE One or more examples demonstrating how this function,
file or command is used.
For details on writing example programs, see Example
Programs below.
AUTHORS A list of authors of the documentation or program.
Use of an AUTHORS section is strongly discouraged.
Generally, it is better not to clutter every page with
a list of (over time potentially numerous) authors; if
you write or significantly amend a page, add a
copyright notice as a comment in the source file. If
you are the author of a device driver and want to
include an address for reporting bugs, place this under
the BUGS section.
SEE ALSO A comma-separated list of related man pages, possibly
followed by other related pages or documents.
The list should be ordered by section number and then
alphabetically by name. Do not terminate this list
with a period.
Where the SEE ALSO list contains many long manual page
names, to improve the visual result of the output, it
may be useful to employ the .ad l (don't right justify)
and .nh (don't hyphenate) directives. Hyphenation of
individual page names can be prevented by preceding
words with the string "\%".
Given the distributed, autonomous nature of FOSS
projects and their documentation, it is sometimes
necessary—and in many cases desirable—that the SEE ALSO
section includes references to manual pages provided by
other projects.
The following subsections describe the preferred style for the man-
pages project. For details not covered below, the Chicago Manual of
Style is usually a good source; try also grepping for preexisting
usage in the project source tree.
Use of gender-neutral language
As far as possible, use gender-neutral language in the text of man
pages. Use of "they" ("them", "themself", "their") as a gender-
neutral singular pronoun is acceptable.
Formatting conventions for manual pages describing commands
For manual pages that describe a command (typically in Sections 1 and
8), the arguments are always specified using italics, even in the
SYNOPSIS section.
The name of the command, and its options, should always be formatted
in bold.
Formatting conventions for manual pages describing functions
For manual pages that describe functions (typically in Sections 2 and
3), the arguments are always specified using italics, even in the
SYNOPSIS section, where the rest of the function is specified in
bold:
int myfunction(int argc, char **argv);
Variable names should, like argument names, be specified in italics.
Any reference to the subject of the current manual page should be
written with the name in bold followed by a pair of parentheses in
Roman (normal) font. For example, in the fcntl(2) man page,
references to the subject of the page would be written as: fcntl().
The preferred way to write this in the source file is:
.BR fcntl ()
(Using this format, rather than the use of "\fB...\fP()" makes it
easier to write tools that parse man page source files.)
Formatting conventions (general)
Filenames (whether pathnames, or references to header files) are
always in italics (e.g., <stdio.h>), except in the SYNOPSIS section,
where included files are in bold (e.g., #include <stdio.h>). When
referring to a standard header file include, specify the header file
surrounded by angle brackets, in the usual C way (e.g., <stdio.h>).
Special macros, which are usually in uppercase, are in bold (e.g.,
MAXINT). Exception: don't boldface NULL.
When enumerating a list of error codes, the codes are in bold (this
list usually uses the .TP macro).
Complete commands should, if long, be written as an indented line on
their own, with a blank line before and after the command, for
example
man 7 man-pages
If the command is short, then it can be included inline in the text,
in italic format, for example, man 7 man-pages. In this case, it may
be worth using nonbreaking spaces ("\ ") at suitable places in the
command. Command options should be written in italics (e.g., -l).
Expressions, if not written on a separate indented line, should be
specified in italics. Again, the use of nonbreaking spaces may be
appropriate if the expression is inlined with normal text.
When showing example shell sessions, user input should be formatted
in bold, for example
$ date
Thu Jul 7 13:01:27 CEST 2016
Any reference to another man page should be written with the name in
bold, always followed by the section number, formatted in Roman
(normal) font, without any separating spaces (e.g., intro(2)). The
preferred way to write this in the source file is:
.BR intro (2)
(Including the section number in cross references lets tools like
man2html(1) create properly hyperlinked pages.)
Control characters should be written in bold face, with no quotes;
for example, ^X.
Spelling
Starting with release 2.59, man-pages follows American spelling
conventions (previously, there was a random mix of British and
American spellings); please write all new pages and patches according
to these conventions.
Aside from the well-known spelling differences, there are a few other
subtleties to watch for:
* American English tends to use the forms "backward", "upward",
"toward", and so on rather than the British forms "backwards",
"upwards", "towards", and so on.
BSD version numbers
The classical scheme for writing BSD version numbers is x.yBSD, where
x.y is the version number (e.g., 4.2BSD). Avoid forms such as BSD
4.3.
Capitalization
In subsection ("SS") headings, capitalize the first word in the
heading, but otherwise use lowercase, except where English usage
(e.g., proper nouns) or programming language requirements (e.g.,
identifier names) dictate otherwise. For example:
.SS Unicode under Linux
Indentation of structure definitions, shell session logs, and so on
When structure definitions, shell session logs, and so on are
included in running text, indent them by 4 spaces (i.e., a block
enclosed by .in +4n and .in).
Preferred terms
The following table lists some preferred terms to use in man pages,
mainly to ensure consistency across pages.
Term Avoid using Notes
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
bit mask bitmask
built-in builtin
Epoch epoch For the UNIX Epoch
(00:00:00, 1 Jan
1970 UTC)
filename file name
filesystem file system
hostname host name
inode i-node
lowercase lower case, lower-case
pathname path name
pseudoterminal pseudo-terminal
privileged port reserved port, system
port
real-time realtime, real time
run time runtime
saved set-group-ID saved group ID, saved
set-GID
saved set-user-ID saved user ID, saved
set-UID
set-group-ID set-GID, setgid
set-user-ID set-UID, setuid
superuser super user, super-user
superblock super block, super-
block
timestamp time stamp
timezone time zone
uppercase upper case, upper-case
usable useable
user space userspace
username user name
zeros zeroes
See also the discussion Hyphenation of attributive compounds below.
Terms to avoid
The following table lists some terms to avoid using in man pages,
along with some suggested alternatives, mainly to ensure consistency
across pages.
Avoid Use instead Notes
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
32bit 32-bit same for 8-bit,
16-bit, etc.
current process calling process A common mistake
made by kernel
programmers when
writing man pages
manpage man page, manual
page
minus infinity negative infinity
non-root unprivileged user
non-superuser unprivileged user
nonprivileged unprivileged
OS operating system
plus infinity positive infinity
pty pseudoterminal
tty terminal
Unices UNIX systems
Unixes UNIX systems
Trademarks
Use the correct spelling and case for trademarks. The following is a
list of the correct spellings of various relevant trademarks that are
sometimes misspelled:
DG/UX
HP-UX
UNIX
UnixWare
NULL, NUL, null pointer, and null character
A null pointer is a pointer that points to nothing, and is normally
indicated by the constant NULL. On the other hand, NUL is the null
byte, a byte with the value 0, represented in C via the character
constant '\0'.
The preferred term for the pointer is "null pointer" or simply
"NULL"; avoid writing "NULL pointer".
The preferred term for the byte is "null byte". Avoid writing "NUL",
since it is too easily confused with "NULL". Avoid also the terms
"zero byte" and "null character". The byte that terminates a C
string should be described as "the terminating null byte"; strings
may be described as "null-terminated", but avoid the use of "NUL-
terminated".
Hyperlinks
For hyperlinks, use the .UR/.UE macro pair (see groff_man(7)). This
produces proper hyperlinks that can be used in a web browser, when
rendering a page with, say:
BROWSER=firefox man -H pagename
Use of e.g., i.e., etc., a.k.a., and similar
In general, the use of abbreviations such as "e.g.", "i.e.", "etc.",
"a.k.a." should be avoided, in favor of suitable full wordings ("for
example", "that is", "and so on", "also known as").
The only place where such abbreviations may be acceptable is in short
parenthetical asides (e.g., like this one).
Always include periods in such abbreviations, as shown here. In
addition, "e.g." and "i.e." should always be followed by a comma.
Em-dashes
The way to write an em-dash—the glyph that appears at either end of
this subphrase—in *roff is with the macro "\(em". (On an ASCII
terminal, an em-dash typically renders as two hyphens, but in other
typographical contexts it renders as a long dash.) Em-dashes should
be written without surrounding spaces.
Hyphenation of attributive compounds
Compound terms should be hyphenated when used attributively (i.e., to
qualify a following noun). Some examples:
32-bit value
command-line argument
floating-point number
run-time check
user-space function
wide-character string
Hyphenation with multi, non, pre, re, sub, and so on
The general tendency in modern English is not to hyphenate after
prefixes such as "multi", "non", "pre", "re", "sub", and so on.
Manual pages should generally follow this rule when these prefixes
are used in natural English constructions with simple suffixes. The
following list gives some examples of the preferred forms:
interprocess
multithreaded
multiprocess
nonblocking
nondefault
nonempty
noninteractive
nonnegative
nonportable
nonzero
preallocated
precreate
prerecorded
reestablished
reinitialize
rearm
reread
subcomponent
subdirectory
subsystem
Hyphens should be retained when the prefixes are used in nonstandard
English words, with trademarks, proper nouns, acronyms, or compound
terms. Some examples:
non-ASCII
non-English
non-NULL
non-real-time
Finally, note that "re-create" and "recreate" are two different
verbs, and the former is probably what you want.
Real minus character
Where a real minus character is required (e.g., for numbers such as
-1, or when writing options that have a leading dash, such as in
ls -l), use the following form in the man page source:
\-
This guideline applies also to code examples.
Character constants
To produce single quotes that render well in both ASCII and UTF-8,
use the following form for character constants in the man page
source:
\(aqC\(aq
where C is the quoted character. This guideline applies also to
character constants used in code examples.
Example programs and shell sessions
Manual pages may include example programs demonstrating how to use a
system call or library function. However, note the following:
* Example programs should be written in C.
* An example program is necessary and useful only if it demonstrates
something beyond what can easily be provided in a textual
description of the interface. An example program that does
nothing other than call an interface usually serves little
purpose.
* Example programs should be fairly short (preferably less than 100
lines; ideally less than 50 lines).
* Example programs should do error checking after system calls and
library function calls.
* Example programs should be complete, and compile without warnings
when compiled with cc -Wall.
* Where possible and appropriate, example programs should allow
experimentation, by varying their behavior based on inputs
(ideally from command-line arguments, or alternatively, via input
read by the program).
* Example programs should be laid out according to Kernighan and
Ritchie style, with 4-space indents. (Avoid the use of TAB
characters in source code!) The following command can be used to
format your source code to something close to the preferred style:
indent -npro -kr -i4 -ts4 -sob -l72 -ss -nut -psl prog.c
* For consistency, all example programs should terminate using
either of:
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
Avoid using the following forms to terminate a program:
exit(0);
exit(1);
return n;
* If there is extensive explanatory text before the program source
code, mark off the source code with a subsection heading Program
source, as in:
.SS Program source
Always do this if the explanatory text includes a shell session
log.
If you include a shell session log demonstrating the use of a program
or other system feature:
* Place the session log above the source code listing
* Indent the session log by four spaces.
* Boldface the user input text, to distinguish it from output
produced by the system.
For some examples of what example programs should look like, see
wait(2) and pipe(2).
For canonical examples of how man pages in the man-pages package
should look, see pipe(2) and fcntl(2).
man(1), man2html(1), attributes(7), groff(7), groff_man(7), man(7),
mdoc(7)
This page is part of release 4.12 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2017-05-03 MAN-PAGES(7)
Pages that refer to this page: intro(1), groff_filenames(7), libc(7), man(7)