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I'm taking the git man page as an example, but I have seen the example I am about to use many places throughout UNIX/Linux.

Under the git man page, it has the following header:

Main Porcelain Commands

Underneath this header, there are a lot of commands with dashes between such as:

git-clone

Since that is headed under Commands you would assume that it means git-clone is a command (I very well know git clone [directory] is a valid.

But it appears that it isn't - so why does the man page list git-clone as being a command? The man pages are good, if you can decode them right.

keldar
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    You can call `man git-clone` and get a man page specific for git clone. Not sure if that's the reasoning for that notation in the `man git` page but *shrug*. – Zach Thacker Jan 31 '14 at 17:06
  • Thanks - so to follow up with your comment, where does it say it's a man page (or am I missing something)? – keldar Jan 31 '14 at 17:07
  • Note that originally there was no `git` executable; you actually ran a binary called `git-clone`, etc. – Wooble Jan 31 '14 at 17:15

1 Answers1

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On my system it says git-clone(1). It is the name of a man page about a command not a command itself.

man git-clone gives:

SYNOPSIS
      git clone [--template=<template_directory>]

… showing it with the space instead of the dash.

Quentin
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  • Thanks! Where on the man page does it say that `git-clone` is another man page? – keldar Jan 31 '14 at 17:08
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    *Pages are traditionally referred to using the notation "name(section)": for example, ftp(1)* — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page – Quentin Jan 31 '14 at 17:11
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/62936/what-does-the-number-in-parentheses-shown-after-unix-command-names-mean – Zach Thacker Jan 31 '14 at 17:11