Online Documentation and man Command for BSD 4.3 System Managers

AIX supports the man -k, apropos, and whatis commands, but the database used by these commands must first be created with the catman -w command.

The AIX man command first searches for flat text pages in the /usr/man/cat? files. Next, it searches nroff-formatted pages in /usr/man/man? files. New man pages can be added in flat text or nroff form.

Notes:

1. The man command text pages are not provided with the system. The catman command creates the database from these text pages. These pages can be either flat text pages stored in the /usr/man/cat? files or nroff formatted pages stored the in /usr/man/man? files.
2. The Text Formatting licensed program must be installed for the nroff command to be available for the man command to read nroff-formatted man pages.