Understand synopsis in manpage
- The synopsis section usually gives some example use-cases. Sometimes sub-commands have different options, so several examples might be shown.
- Brackets
[]always denote optional switches, arguments, options, etc. - Yes, the pipe
|means or, particularly when inside brackets or parenthesis. - Brackets in brackets just means that the second part is dependent on the first, and also itself optional. Some switches you can use on their own or add a value to them. Commas at the start of a bracket would indicate there can be multiple comma separated values.
- They lean on Regex concepts, but are meant to be human readable so don't follow all the escaping rules etc.
If you want a reference, they are loosely based on EBNF.
From man man page :
The following conventions apply to the SYNOPSIS section and can be used as a guide in other sections.
Exact rendering may vary depending on the output device. For instance, man will usually not be able to render italics when running in a terminal, and will typically use underlined or coloured text instead.
The command or function illustration is a pattern that should match all possible invocations. In some cases it is advisable to illustrate several exclusive invocations as is shown in the SYNOPSIS section of this manual page.
