Template:Man page/doc

To be used for inserting manual page links into articles on Unix topics.

Usage

Examples

In	Out
{{man|3|printf}}	printf – System Interfaces Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group
{{man|3|printf|||inline}}	printf
{{man|3|printf|FreeBSD}}	printf(3) – FreeBSD Library Functions Manual
{{man|3|printf||formatted output conversion}}	printf: formatted output conversion – System Interfaces Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group

Parameters

1. Manual section
2. Manual page name
3. Source (the name of a subpage in the Template:Man namespace e.g. FreeBSD. Leave blank for the current default.)
4. Page description
5. Style parameter; currently inline omits the attribution.

Available sources

Please add to this table as you write new sources!

Source	Example → Result
default	{{man|1|ls}} → ls – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group
die.net	{{man|1|ls|die.net}} → ls(1) – Linux User Commands Manual
Version 6 Unix	{{man|1|ls|v6}} → ls(1) – Version 6 Unix Programmer's Manual
Version 7 Unix	{{man|1|ls|v7}} → ls(1) – Version 7 Unix Programmer's Manual
Version 8 Unix	{{man|1|ls|v8}} → ls(1) – Version 8 Unix Programmer's Manual
4.2BSD	{{man|1|ls|4.2BSD}} → ls(1) – 4.2BSD General Commands Manual
4.3BSD	{{man|1|ls|4.3BSD}} → ls(1) – 4.3BSD General Commands Manual
4.3BSD-Reno	{{man|1|ls|4.3BSD-Reno}} → ls(1) – BSD General Commands Manual
4.4BSD-Lite2	{{man|1|ls|4.4BSD-Lite2}} → ls(1) – BSD General Commands Manual
9front	{{man|1|ls|9front}} → ls(1) – 9front manual page
Darwin	{{man|1|ls|Darwin}} → ls(1) – Darwin and macOS General Commands Manual
Debian	{{man|1|ls|Debian}} → ls(1) – Debian General Commands Manual
man.cx	{{man|8|iptables|man.cx}} → iptables(8) – man.cx Maintenance Commands Manual
DragonFly BSD	{{man|1|ls|DragonFly BSD}} → ls(1) – DragonFly BSD General Commands Manual
FreeBSD	{{man|1|ls|FreeBSD}} → ls(1) – FreeBSD General Commands Manual
HP-UX	{{man|1|ls|HP-UX}} → ls(1) – HP-UX 11i User Commands Manual
Inferno	{{man|1|ls|Inferno}} → ls(1) – Inferno General commands Manual
IRIX	{{man|1|ls|IRIX}} → ls(1) – IRIX 6.5 User Commands Manual
Linux	{{man|7|epoll|Linux}} → epoll(7) – Linux Programmer's Manual – Overview, Conventions and Miscellanea from Manned.org
ManKier	{{man|1|ls|ManKier}} → ls(1) – Linux General Commands Manual from ManKier.com
MirOS BSD	{{man|1|ls|MirOS BSD}} → ls(1) – MirOS BSD i386 General Commands Manual
NetBSD	{{man|1|ls|NetBSD}} → ls(1) – NetBSD General Commands Manual
OpenBSD	{{man|1|ls|OpenBSD}} → ls(1) – OpenBSD General Commands Manual
OpenSolaris	{{man|1|ls|OpenSolaris}} → ls(1) – illumos and OpenSolaris User Commands Reference Manual from latest Sun based OpenSolaris
perldoc	{{man|1|perlrun|perldoc}} → perlrun(1) – Perl Programming Documentation
Plan 9	{{man|1|ls|Plan 9}} → ls(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
Solaris	{{man|1|ls|Solaris}} → ls(1) – Solaris 11.4 User Commands Reference Manual
SUS	{{man|cu|ls|SUS}} → ls – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group
SUS6	{{man|sh|putmsg|SUS6}} → putmsg – System Interfaces Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 3 from The Open Group

General recommendations

For most articles, it is preferable to cite SUS (if present) for standard, the FreeBSD page for history, and the Linux page for a relatively widespread form. Add other OS pages as needed.

There are several sources for Linux manual pages. Just use "Linux" which points to manned.org, which has up-to-date manpages collected from several Linux distributions (as well as FreeBSD); it will, by default, "try to get the latest and most-close-to-upstream version of a man page", which "will fetch the man page from any of the available systems". Do not go for die.net unless it's the only place where a page can be found, as the formatting is horrible and the pages are old.

Other sources

Occasionally you will come across manual pages for which writing a source is overkill. In this case you can use Template:man/format directly with a URL for formatting:

In	Out
{{man/format|1|dbx|http://.../dbx.1.html|source-level debugging tool|[[Sun Studio]] Developer's Manual}}	dbx(1): source-level debugging tool – Sun Studio Developer's Manual

The interface of Template:man/format is therefore externally visible and needs to be kept constant.

Hacking

Writing sources

A source takes three parameters:

1. Manual section
2. Manual page name
3. Output selector:
   • attrib for attribution
   • url for URL to page
   • display_section for section to display in parentheses.

See Template:Man/die.net for an example; see Template:Man/FreeBSD for a demonstration of varying the attribution by manual section.

Internals

Template:man handles choosing the default source and calling it for URL and attribution; the default source is Template:man/default, which is a template redirect currently to Template:man/SUS. Template:man/format actually formats the link and descriptions into a nice-looking link+auxilia in Unix style.

TemplateData

TemplateData documentation used by VisualEditor and other tools

See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Man page in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Man page

To be used for inserting manual page links into articles on Unix topics.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Manual section	1	The section of the manual. e.g. if the manual page is 'ls(1)', the section is 1. Suggested values 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Example 1	String	required
Manual page name	2	The name of the page you are referring to Example ls	String	required
Source	3	The name of a subpage in the 'Template:Man' namespace. Suggested values die.net Linux FreeBSD Darwin SUS Debian Default SUS Example FreeBSD	String	suggested
Page description	4	Will appear after the link to the man page	Content	optional
Style parameter	5	Currently "inline" omits the attribution Suggested values inline	String	optional