Tell me more ×
Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems.. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite

I know that these command will help to get syntax and options for commands but my question is that how they differ from each other?

share|improve this question

2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

help is a bash command. It uses internal bash structures to store and retrieve information about bash commands.

man is a macro set for the troff (via groff) processor. The output of processing a single file is sent to a pager by the man command by default.

info is a text-only viewer for archives in the info format output of Texinfo.

share|improve this answer
thats clear... thank you. – Rupesh Pawar Aug 26 '11 at 5:06
1  
man is more than a "macro set for the troff processor". -1 for this answer. – fpmurphy Aug 26 '11 at 14:06
@fpmurphy: Not by much. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Aug 26 '11 at 20:05
up vote 7 down vote

help is a bash built-in, providing help for bash commands only

man is the traditional form of help for almost every command on your system, and not only, sometimes also configuration files have their own man page. In Linux distros organized in packages, the relative text is in general provided from the same package providing the command. If you have bash-completion you can take advantage from TAB to see what man pages are available.

info is an alternative system to provide manual pages for commands, based on GNU emacs. It is provided mainly for GNU commands and utilities. It don't seem to be widely adopted from others.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.