Other sections of the reference manuals contain information needed by system and application programmers who need to know how the operating system works and how to write programs that interact with it. If you are a programmer, or intend to become one, you will probably have your manual opened to these pages frequently. A permuted index is an index that shows words in a contextual setting, helping you isolate one instance of a word from possibly many in the document. Near the beginning of the UNIX User Reference Manual is a permuted index that you should refer to when seeking information about a topic. A Permuted index entry points to a specific manual section and identifies the manual page entry by its topic name, which is usually a command or application programname.
Pages are in alphabetical order except for an introductory page or so that leads off each section.
All manual page entries, which can span one or more physical pages, have a running headerthat shows the command or application program name in the upper left and right corners of each page. The headings are mostly self-descriptive, but a few need further explanation. The Synopsis part shows the command or application program as you would type it. This includes the program name, any optional arguments, and any required arguments-typically file names. The Files part lists the files that a program uses and these are not necessarily related to files specified on the command line.