Mailing Lists: Apple Mailing Lists
Image of Mac OS face in stamp
 
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Using CLI to properly unmount a disk image

hdiutil(8)

What does th "(8)" mean? I see this a lot in reference to man pages and
daemons/services. But what does the number in paranthethese mean?? I would
LOVE to know. I hear about ftpd(8) all the time, and I wonder what it is. I
know ALL about the ftpd (sigh), but don't know what the "(8)" references.

The number refers to the section of the UNIX manual in which
the command documentation appears (a throwback to when physical
manuals were delievered with UNIX software). The different
sections document different kinds of things; on a BSD system
like OS X, they go something like:

section 1 - user commands
section 2 - system calls
section 3 - C library functions
section 4 - protocols
section 5 - configuration files
section 7 - miscellaneous stuff
section 8 - administrative commands

Usually this is explained by "man man", but not on OS X. If you
want to see what's in each of the sections, check out the
subdirectories of /usr/share/man/.

Some entries by the same name can appear in different sections,
so the section number is often specified with names of things,
as in hdiutil(8), fstat(1), or fstat(2). If you enter
"man fstat", you'll get the man page for fstat(1). If you want
to look up the fstat system call, you use "man 2 fstat".

_____________________________________________________________
Leon Towns-von Stauber http://www.occam.com/leonvs/
"We have not come to save you, but you will not die in vain!"
_______________________________________________
macos-x-server mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/macos-x-server
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
References: 
 >RE: Using CLI to properly unmount a disk image (From: "Stranathan, Dan" <email@hidden>)



Visit the Apple Store online or at retail locations.
1-800-MY-APPLE

Contact Apple | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.