Question

Duplicate: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/587676/why-do-programs-in-unix-like-environments-have-numbers-after-their-name/

For instance, if I type:

man ps 

…and then scroll to the very end I see something like this:

SEE ALSO      kill(1), w(1), kvm(3), strftime(3), sysctl(8) 

How am I supposed to interpret this? I know that kill is another command but what’s the meaning of (1)? Is there anything to this?

The git man page is riddle with these:

git-add(1), git-am(1), git-archive(1) 

What is someone trying to tell me?

Answer 1

To access the man page for a given numbered section, type man number command

From man man

1. Executable programs or shell commands
2. System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
3. Library calls (functions within program libraries)
4. Special files (usually found in /dev)
5. File formats and conventions eg /etc/passwd
6. Games
7. Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conven‐tions), e.g. man(7), groff(7)
8. System administration commands> (usually only for root)
9. Kernel routines [Non standard]

So for example,

man 1 printf 

Will give you the page for the shell printf command, whereas

man 3 printf 

Will give you the page for the C library call.