How to jump to a specific heading in a man page?

Question

I've set a filetype in vim for this. I want the help program to be man. Of course this does not work. For instance, with ssh_config's manpage, if I am on a word, say ServerAliveCountMax, I get an error, since there is no man pager for ServerAliveCountMax -- it's inside ssh_config's manpage.

From the command line, is there any way to jump to a string or run some type of command inside man? Just like how info can take me to the Miscellaneous section of screen's info page:

info screen Miscellaneous

Is this possible with man? Even running a search would serve...

For OSX/*BSD with /usr/bin/man, this works:

man -P 'less -p PATTERN' ssh_config

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 02 '13 at 12:36

18

From the command line for GNU man:

man --pager='less -p ^ENVIRONMENT' man

or for BSD man:

man -P 'less -p ^ENVIRONMENT' man

will jump to the "ENVIRONMENT" heading of the man page for man.

Here is a handy function:

mans () {    # Bash
    local pages string
    if [[ -n $2 ]]
    then
        pages=(${@:2})
        string="$1"
    else
        pages=$1
    fi
    # GNU man
    man ${2:+--pager="less -p \"$string\" -G"} ${pages[@]}
    # BSD man
    # man ${2:+-P "less -p \"$string\" -G"} ${pages[@]}
}

Examples:

Use normally:

mans bash

Go to the "DESCRIPTION" heading:

mans ^DESCRIPTION bash

Go to the "DESCRIPTION" heading of each man page in succession (press q and Enter to go to the next one):

mans ^DESCRIPTION bash ksh zsh

Go to the "Parameter Expansion" sub-heading (you can search for any string using regular expressions):

mans '^ *Parameter Expansion' bash

Search for the most recent regex you've used in Less:

mans '' bash

The match that you searched for won't be highlighted. If you'd prefer it to be, just remove the -G from the options to less.

This function makes no attempt to handle the other arguments and options that man supports.

edited Feb 02 '13 at 12:36

kackleyjm

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answered Nov 29 '10 at 01:18

Dennis Williamson

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promising, I edited my question, I see you ran that using either macports or linux, I have a -P option in the crappy BSD style option list... trying that. – chiggsy Nov 29 '10 at 02:32
Thanks, I got it, but thanks again! BAH, I can't upvote your new answer again :( – chiggsy Nov 29 '10 at 02:40
@Chiggsy: I take it the `-P` worked. If so, I'll add it to my answer. – Dennis Williamson Nov 29 '10 at 02:41
For the record, I upvoted your original answer. It was completely correct. Your edit , i was unable to upvote. I wanted to though... – chiggsy Nov 29 '10 at 02:45
@Chiggsy: Should I add the `-P` BSD-style to my answer for future reference? – Dennis Williamson Nov 29 '10 at 02:47
Yes. It was definitely just dialect difference. – chiggsy Nov 29 '10 at 08:28

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 16 '20 at 22:57

I don't like the --pager/-P solution, because man might be used but not be called directly (e.g. when you use git help ...). So using an envvar is more flexible. But I find using PAGER='less ... kind of redundant, because less is usually the default pager anyway. You can use the LESS envvar to pass on parameters directly to less. This also has less quoting issues. E.g. this will correctly jump to the right section, even though it has a space in it:

LESS="-p file system" git help glossary

Up to the top with this answer! Thanks :) – Patryk Obara Apr 25 '20 at 19:14 — Patryk Obara, Apr 25 '20 at 19:14

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 29 '17 at 15:10

I use a simple trick to jump relatively fast between sections in man pages: I hit /^[A-Z] and then I can press n and N to jump forward and backwards.

The search regex utilizes the basic structure of typical man pages - The main sections are written in capital letters and they begin a line without indentation therefor they should appear at the beginning of lines.

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 06 '19 at 10:09

2

You can use PAGER variable for this run to avoid BSD/GNU compatibility problem.

Use " quotes if the section title contains spaces:

PAGER='less -p ^"ENVIRONMENT"' man man

answered Jan 06 '19 at 10:09

user503963

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1

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 28 '10 at 23:26

1

/ in less will do a forward search, and ? will do a reverse search. Press h to see a full list.

answered Nov 28 '10 at 23:26

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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See my comment above, and actually, my question. – chiggsy Nov 29 '10 at 02:23

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 28 '10 at 23:30

1

In man you can type / followed by a pattern to match e.g. to find the DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS section of the screen man page you would type

/^DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS

answered Nov 28 '10 at 23:30

user9517

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Yes. This is true, but you have to be _in_ man to do it. I want to get from the shell to that in one step. – chiggsy Nov 29 '10 at 02:22

How to jump to a specific heading in a man page?

6 Answers6