help -- Command

Print concise description of command
help [-dc] [-ffile] [-ifile] [-r] [command]...

help  prints  a  concise description  of  the  options  available for  each
specified command. If command  is omitted, help prints a simple description
of itself,  followed by information about the  command given by $LASTERROR,
which is the last command returning a nonzero exit status.

help provides more information than the usage message printed by a command,
but  less than  the detailed  description  given by  the man  command.  The
primary purpose of help is to  refresh your memory if you have forgotten an
option to command.

help looks  in /usr/lib/helpfile for system information  and the file named
in environmental variable $HELP for user-specific information.  Information
about a command begins with a line

    #command

and  ends with  the next  line beginning with  `#' in  /usr/lib/helpfile or
$HELP.

help recognizes the following options:

-dc  Use c as the delimiting  character within the helpfile, instead of the
     default #.

-ffile
     Read   the  help   entries  from  file   instead  from   the  default,
     /usr/lib/helpfile.

-ifile
     Read  the helpfile's  index  from file  instead of  from the  default,
     /usr/lib/helpindex.  help uses the  index to speed its retrieval of an
     entry, and does not work without it.

-r   Rebuild the  index.  If  you modify a  helpfile, you must  rebuild its
     index, or help will no longer retrieve items correctly.

Example

The following shows  how to rebuild the index for  helpfile myhelp, using @
as the delimiting character:

    help -d@ -fmyhelp -imyindex -r

Files

/usr/lib/helpfile -- Additional system information
/usr/lib/helpindex -- Index for helpfile
$HELP -- User information
$LASTERROR -- Default command help

See Also

apropos,
commands,
man,
Using COHERENT

© 2012 by Stephen A. Ness