where are the docs?

October 25, 2007 12:43 PM

How do I access the C documentation that's on my computer?

I'm running OSX 10.4.10 with all the devtools installed. Whenever I want to use a header file or one of the standard functions that I'm not familiar with, I head to Google. I suspect that there are man pages for most everything that comes in a standard C environment, but how do I get to them?

posted by tylermoody to computers & internet (6 comments total)

In a Browser you should be able to open

/Developer/ADC Reference Library/index.html

That gets a lot
posted by bitdamaged at 12:54 PM on October 25, 2007

man doesn't work for you?

man getpwent, for example, shows me the manpage I expect. I have to use man 3 printf to read the manpage for the printf function rather than the printf command, but it's there too.
posted by hades at 12:55 PM on October 25, 2007

apropos will also search the man database, e.g. 'apropos printf'.
posted by kcm at 1:02 PM on October 25, 2007

I keep XCode's "Documentation" window open (under Help) - you can type any function in the search bar and see either its man page or API docs.
posted by neustile at 1:12 PM on October 25, 2007

Yeah, open up a terminal and type man and you should be set. That's what I use.

If you use QuickSilver, there is an Apple Developer Docs plugin.
posted by chunking express at 1:49 PM on October 25, 2007

QuickSilver + Apple Developer Docs plugin does it for me, if we're talking about Apple-originated headers. For unix headers, open up a terminal and use man, man. Actually, start with the command "man man". It teaches you how to get the docs.
posted by Netzapper at 5:01 PM on October 25, 2007