BRLMAN(1)

📦
version 7.44.0 · 2 versions
, in nixpkgs unstable

👑 NAME 👑

brlman — the manual page viewer for BRL-CAD, bestie. it's literally your lil' portal into all the docs 💅

so brlman lives in the BRL-CAD manual (section 1, obvs), and i'm about to walk you through every single thing it does 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

brlman [options] [manpage] [section]
brlman -k keyword
brlman -K keyword

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so brlman is a manual page viewer for BRL-CAD programs, libraries, file formats, and mged(1)/GED commands. it's giving "one stop shop for all the docs" and we stan 🎀

on Unix-like systems it wraps the system man(1) command, supplying the paths needed to locate BRL-CAD's installed man pages. lowkey a little matchmaker between you and man(1) 🧚

on systems lacking a man command, or when the GUI is explicitly requested, brlman launches a graphical viewer that displays HTML versions of the same documentation. and here's the iconic part: the terminal and HTML pages are generated from the same source and contain identical information. no cap, same facts both ways 💯

the page to display is given by name. an optional one-character section may be supplied either as a positional argument or via -S. if no section is given, brlman searches sections 1, 3, 5, and n in that order and shows the first match. first come, first served, periodt ✨

with no arguments at all? the graphical viewer (where available) opens to a browsable index. main character energy — just browse 🌸

search mode lists matching manual pages in ranked order instead of opening a single page. the -k option searches page names, synopsis text, and brief descriptions. the -K option searches the full manual page text. and when no section is selected, all BRL-CAD manual sections are searched. we're thorough like that 🦋

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

  • -h, --help — print a usage summary and exit. bye bestie, here's how i work 👋
  • -g, --gui — force the graphical man page viewer, even where the terminal man command is available. you want the pretty version? you get the pretty version 💅
  • --no-gui — disable the graphical viewer. if the terminal man command is unavailable, brlman will fail. primarily useful in scripting. > ⚠️ heads up: no GUI + no man = it literally can't do anything. know what you're doing before you script this one 🙈
  • -L lg, --language lg — two-letter language code (e.g. en) used when selecting man pages. if not given, brlman uses the first two characters of the LANG environment variable, falling back to en. it's multilingual, it's cultured 🌈
  • -S #, --section # — section to search. useful when a program and a GED command share a name; the default page is the program (section 1), so -S n selects the GED command page instead. allowed sections are 1 (programs), 3 (libraries), 5 (conventions/formats), and n (GED commands). disambiguation queen 👑
  • -k keyword, --keyword keyword — search manual page names, synopses, and brief descriptions. matching pages are listed in ranked order. quick vibes-only search ⭐
  • -K keyword, --full-text keyword — search the full text of manual pages. matching pages are listed in ranked order. the deep dive, the full lore 💀

💜 EXAMPLES 💜

Example 1. Viewing a program manual page

brlman mged

opens the manual page for the mged(1) command, defaulting to section 1. easy, iconic, done ✅

Example 2. Disambiguating a name shared by a tool and a GED command

brlman -S n search

the name search exists both as a standalone tool (section 1) and as a GED command (section n). the -S n selection shows the GED command page instead of the default tool page. the equivalent positional form is brlman search n. same energy, different spelling 🦋

Example 3. Browsing documentation graphically

brlman -g

forces the graphical viewer and, because no page was named, opens a browsable index of all installed programs, libraries, conventions, and GED commands. it's giving library tour, grab a snack 🍓

Example 4. Searching all manual page text

brlman -K "boolean operations"

lists pages whose full text contains the search terms, with higher-ranked matches first. go off, search engine 🔍✨

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

brlcad(1), mged(1), man(1)

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

BRL-CAD Team — legends, honestly 🫶

This software is Copyright (c) 1989-2026 by the United States Government as represented by U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

💌 BUG REPORTS 💌

Reports of bugs or problems should be submitted via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org — they wanna hear from you, fr fr 🙈

that's the whole page bestie, no skips, no cuts, every single flag accounted for 💖 and yeah — this gorgeous thing ships from BRL-CAD and it's BRLMAN(1), so if you ever forget where you read it, it was right here in your fave manual. slay 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from