On Unix-like operating systems, the info command reads documentation stored in the info format, developed by the Free Software Foundation.

Description

The info format is similar to that of man, the traditional Unix manual format. Info additionally provides a robust structure for linking pages together, similar to hyperlinks. Info pages are made using the texinfo tools, and can link with other pages, create menus and ease navigation in general.

  • Description
  • Syntax
  • Examples
  • Related commands
  • Linux commands help

The default location of info documentation is /usr/share/info.

Syntax

info [OPTION]… [MENU-ITEM…]

Options

MENU-OPTION, if present, is the menu entry to start from; it is searched for in all ‘dir’ files along INFOPATH. If it is not present, info merges all ‘dir’ files and shows the result. Any remaining arguments are treated as the names of menu items relative to the initial node visited.

For a summary of key bindings, type h within info.

Examples

info emacs

Start at emacs node from top-level dir.

info –show-options emacs

Start at node with emacs command line options.

info -f ./foo.info

Show file ./foo.info, not searching dir,

info

Shows the top-level info page.

info –subnodes -o all-vi-info.txt vi

Output all information on the vi command, with any subnodes of information, to the file all-vi-info.txt.

man — Display the manual page of a given command.whatis — Display short manual page descriptions.