3

What is the difference between invoking the help using a --help key compared to invoking a "man command"?

When should I choose one over another.

Mitten
  • 373
  • 1
  • 4
  • 12
  • 2
    Any answer in [Why do some commands have man pages and other commands use --help?](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/1832/why-do-some-commands-have-man-pages-and-other-commands-use-help)? – manatwork Aug 13 '13 at 12:01
  • 2
    By the way, there are also info pages, reachable as `info command`. See [What is GNU Info for?](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/77514/what-is-gnu-info-for) for more. – manatwork Aug 13 '13 at 12:03
  • 1
    Pretty much a duplicate, voting to close. – Shadur Aug 13 '13 at 12:11
  • 1
    That's @manatwork doing what a man at work does. Keep up the good work! – 41754 Aug 13 '13 at 12:17

1 Answers1

4

Help is a built-in "usage" of the command, and not all commands implement it, or at least not the same way, however, man is a command by itself which is a pager program that reads manual. For more info issue the man man for the manual pages for the man command.

You should use man every time you need additional information about a command, as well with the info command, that reads info documents.

Luiz de Andrade
  • 56
  • 6