Welcome to OGeek Q&A Community for programmer and developer-Open, Learning and Share
Welcome To Ask or Share your Answers For Others

Categories

0 votes
224 views
in Technique[技术] by (71.8m points)

Linux/Unix man page syntax conventions

In man pages I come across various syntaxes to write Linux/Unix commands, which include square brackets, angular brackets, hyphens (-) and double hyphens (--) in various combinations. Does anyone know the meaning of these syntax conventions?

[ ]
< >
[< >]
[--]
-
--
[< >...]
See Question&Answers more detail:os

与恶龙缠斗过久,自身亦成为恶龙;凝视深渊过久,深渊将回以凝视…
Welcome To Ask or Share your Answers For Others

1 Reply

0 votes
by (71.8m points)

Square Brackets [ ]

The square brackets ( [ ] ) indicate that the enclosed element (parameter, value, or information) is optional. You can choose one or more items or no items. Do not type the square brackets themselves in the command line.

Example: [global options], [source arguments], [destination arguments]

Angle Brackets < >

The angle brackets ( < > ) indicate that the enclosed element (parameter, value, or information) is mandatory. You are required to replace the text within the angle brackets with the appropriate information. Do not type the angle brackets themselves in the command line.

Example: -f [set the File Name variable], -printer <printer name>, -repeat <months> <days> <hours> <minutes>, date access <mm/dd/yyyy>

In Unix-like systems, the ASCII hyphen–minus is commonly used to specify options. The character is usually followed by one or more letters. An argument that is a single hyphen–minus by itself without any letters usually specifies that a program should handle data coming from the standard input or send data to the standard output. Two hyphen–minus characters ( -- ) are used on some programs to specify "long options" where more descriptive option names are used. This is a common feature of GNU software.

Just do 'ls --help' and look at the options, it should be obvious to you.

 -A, --almost-all           do not list implied . and ..
     --author               with -l, print the author of each file
 -b, --escape               print octal escapes for nongraphic characters
     --block-size=SIZE      use SIZE-byte blocks
 -B, --ignore-backups       do not list implied entries ending with ~
 -c                         with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last
                              modification of file status information)
                              with -l: show ctime and sort by name
                              otherwise: sort by ctime'
 -C                         list entries by columns
     --color[=WHEN] 

与恶龙缠斗过久,自身亦成为恶龙;凝视深渊过久,深渊将回以凝视…
OGeek|极客中国-欢迎来到极客的世界,一个免费开放的程序员编程交流平台!开放,进步,分享!让技术改变生活,让极客改变未来! Welcome to OGeek Q&A Community for programmer and developer-Open, Learning and Share
Click Here to Ask a Question

...