Why do some commands have man pages and other commands use --help?

Question

Wouldn't it be more consistent if one of these always worked?

I understand that this might have something to do with cross-platform applications, but I am curious if there are any other reasons — Casebash, Sep 10 '10 at 04:32
Reality is worse than you describe: many commands have full documentation in info format. — mouviciel, Sep 10 '10 at 08:22
@Tobias: tagging something feature-request is for requests to add functionality to the site, and belongs on meta. — Kevin M, Sep 10 '10 at 16:14
@Kevin M: just kidding. I meant as a feature-request to the devs of unix/linux software — Tobias Kienzler, Sep 13 '10 at 09:46

xenoterracide · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-10T05:08:09.830

Yes it would be more consistent. This has nothing to do with cross-platform and everything to do with developers not writing (wanting to write) documentation. a man page is documentation, --help is mostly programming in nature. I've also seen the case where man pages didn't exist because the developer didn't know how to make one, or convert the documentation from another format, sometimes this is easily remedied.

I would like to note that I wish both always worked.

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 28 '21 at 20:52

13

I agree with @xenoterracide's answer - both would be nice...
I expect --help to report functionality and options real short.
I expect man (or info...) to describe in detail what was previously reported by --help, maybe provide some examples, background etc.

edited Nov 28 '21 at 20:52

Ardent Coder

107
7

answered Sep 10 '10 at 11:46

Nils

361

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 10 '10 at 08:40

1

Some people do not like man pages, and write info files instead (notably GNU).

answered Sep 10 '10 at 08:40

bhm

751

1

Why? And which does help use? Here's the answer. – Cees Timmerman Oct 22 '14 at 08:42

Why do some commands have man pages and other commands use --help?

3 Answers3

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