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I am trying to append --help on OSX terminal commands but it seems that this is not the right way to display help tips on a certain command.

What is the equivalent way to do this in OSX?

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Which commands specifically? Have you tried man [command]? – alex c Aug 19 '11 at 0:42
Thanks alex c, that is exactly what I'm looking for. – Dee Aug 19 '11 at 0:54
By the way, as of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Terminal has several convenient ways to open man pages or perform an apropos lookup. There are commands in the Help menu and in the contextual menu (Right-Click or Control-Click), as well as Services you can enable to look up man pages from other applications (System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services > Open man Page in Terminal / Search man Pages in Terminal). It supports man topic names as well as man page references ("2 open", "open(2)") and URLs ("x-man-page://2/open"). You can also Command-Double-Click man page references or URLs. – Chris Page Aug 19 '11 at 9:25
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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Some commands support --help, others -help, others still use -h or --h.

man <command> is the most reliable way.

You can also search for man pages online. Most, if not all of them are available in HTML, which makes them much easier to read and learn.

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thanks @slhck. an iPad doesn't make the most elegant device for proper formatting :) – peelman Aug 19 '11 at 13:54
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up vote 1 down vote

You may also look into the "info" command thats a more "friendly" front end for the man command.

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Also apropos will find references to keywords, (although I think this is less friendly than info.) – slomojo Aug 19 '11 at 1:42
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