What do the manual page sections mean on Arch manual pages?

Updated

On man.archlinux.org, the number in a page name — as in intro(1) or intro(8) — is the manual section, a traditional classification of what kind of information the page contains. Arch follows the conventional Unix scheme of sections 1 through 8, and the site states that manual pages are organized into these sections, with an introduction page available for each one: intro(1), intro(2), intro(3), intro(4), intro(5), intro(6), intro(7), and intro(8). Reading the relevant intro page is the authoritative way to learn what a given section covers in Arch.

The traditional sections

The site does not spell out a one-line definition for each number, so the reliable move is to open the intro page for the section you are curious about. What the site does document is how sections behave when you look a page up:

  • If you omit the section from a URL, you are redirected to the first manual page found, searching sections in this order: 1, n, l, 8, 6, 3, 0, 2, 5, 7, 4, 9.
  • That order is why man.archlinux.org/man/foo usually lands on foo(1) — section 1 is checked first.

Subsections and non-standard sections

Not every page sits in a plain 1–8 slot. The site notes two variations:

  • Subsections, such as 3ssl, used by some packages to group related pages under a parent section.
  • Non-standard sections, such as 0 or n, which fall outside the traditional numbering.

These still work in the addressing scheme, so a page in a subsection or odd section is reachable the same way as any other.

Using sections to disambiguate

The same page name can exist in several sections or packages. The addressing scheme is /man/<name>/<section>/<package>/<language>/<format>, where every part except the name is optional:

Part Purpose If omitted
section Picks the section (e.g. 1, 3ssl, n) Redirect to first match in the order above
package Disambiguates versions across packages Looked up in core, then extra, then multilib
language Page language Defaults to en (also the fallback)
format Output format Defaults to html; txt and raw also supported

So if you want the section 5 version of a config-file page rather than the section 1 command page, put 5 in the section position. If two packages ship the same page, add the package name to choose between them.

Practical checks

  • To confirm what a section means, open https://man.archlinux.org/man/intro.<section> — for example intro(5) for file formats.
  • To see every page a package provides, including its sections, use a per-package listing such as core/openssl.
  • Symbolic links like bunzip2(1) are served as HTTP 302 redirects, so the section in the link name may point you to the real target page.

One caution: the site's own front page is styled like a manual page but is not one, so don't treat its section number as meaningful.