Unless otherwise noted, commands described in the SYNOPSIS Section of a manual page accept options and other arguments according to the syntax and should be interpreted as explained below:
name [-option…] [cmdarg…]
name | The name of an executable file. |
---|---|
[ ] | Surround an option or cmdarg that is not required. |
option | (always preceeded by a ‘-‘). noargletter… or argletter optarg[,…] |
noargletter | A single letter representing an option without an option-argument. Note that more than one noargletter option can be grouped after one ‘-‘. |
argletter | A single letter representing an option requiring an option-argument. |
optarg | An option-argument (character string) satisfying a preceding argletter. Note that groups of optargs following an argletter must be separated by commas or separated by white space and quoted. |
cmdarg | Pathname (or other command argument) not beginning with ‘-‘. |